


Find A Way To Let Go

by LitheLies



Series: Finding Ways [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-War, Canon Divergence - Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Dark Magic, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Marriage Contracts, Resurrection Stone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21778960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitheLies/pseuds/LitheLies
Summary: A continuation ofFind A Way To Live On; Hermione's second semester of Eighth year has begun. There is much left to learn if she hopes to finish her Eighth year and start her life -- but does Draco want this as much as she does?(AU Slowburn Eighth year, Dramione.)
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: Finding Ways [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569556
Comments: 101
Kudos: 195





	1. staff meeting.

**Author's Note:**

> I recommend checking out [Find A Way To Live On](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21278717) before you delve into this story.

_**January 2nd, 1999.** _

A crash in the dark sent Hermione into a blind panic. She scratched beneath her pillow, to dig out her wand. Sleep clung to her eyes, and she felt stupid for thinking she'd be able to sleep at all. Her mind fled in every awful direction imaginable, though she could see no one beyond the curtain. They were thin and light, so it was easy to peer through them...

And then she saw a nose snuffle around the edge of her curtain, as a great black dog poked its face into her bed.

"Are you serious?"

The dog barked.

"Don't you -- don't sass me," Hermione shoved his snout, as she clambered out of her bed. Pansy and Daphne had their beds pushed together still, while Bethany had fallen asleep in Emily's bed. Hermione felt her stomach drop, though she didn't linger on it. She hadn't a chance to, not as she watched Sirius trot towards the door.

She followed with her wand still held in front of her, her brows furrowed.

And in the dorms above were Snape, Ayers and Sirius, accompanied by a weary Malfoy flanked by Ron and Harry. They looked more alert as if they'd had a warning about this.

"It's the start of the semester," Hermione huffed, as she tied her bathrobe tighter. She narrowed her gaze between Ayers and Snape, and then to Sirius who'd turned back into his human form. "We couldn't have done this _last_ week?"

"You'd been awake for... What, a day at that point?" Sirius waved a hand at her. "Pleased to see you back on your feet, by the way."

Hermione gave a withering smile to the dark-haired man, who grinned his handsome grin. As if he'd not snuck into her dorms in the dead of night when he was twice her age and double her size. Then again, it was Sirius, she'd be hardly surprised to find out if he'd made a habit of delving into the girls' dorms after hours in his youth.

"We needed to talk, and Hogwarts is the safest place to do that," Ayers interrupted, her hand held out towards Hermione.

She winced back, away from the woman. It was a reflex if people tried to touch her. She'd not been able to beat it, and the redhead thought better of her extended hand.

"I know, all things considered..." She looked to the entrance of the Eighth year dorms, which highlighted the slashed scar across her throat.

Hermione felt Draco slip over to her, to wrap his arms around her and rest his cheek against her neck. He rocked, slowly, softly, and she patted his cheek. He had the rings, and he was warm and smelled much like himself. She hated how she'd have to double-down and examine everyone who came close to her, but she was on edge.

She'd trusted Draco, and...

She felt Draco tighten his grip on her as if he'd gleaned those thoughts, of his face at Azkaban, a morbid mask to draw her to a trap.

"Yes, well, there's much to discuss," Ayers waved a hand, and the group set off for Hogsmeade. Hermione felt the raw heat through her chest, as she didn't _want_ answers, she didn't want to know anything. For once, she wanted to sleep and to focus on school. And for once, she wasn't allowed that luxury, as she'd not had a chance to debrief from her encounter with Voldemort in Selwyn's abandoned home. She knew half-truths and parts of the events, but most of all she remembered how he'd carved a hole into Draco's chest.

At least his complexion had cleared up, no dark marks pocked onto his face.

"So they're letting you teach still? Harry asked in a tense voice.

"So it seems." Snape straightened his posture, as much as his hunch would allow.

"Really, no one else could do it?" Ron asked, in a stage whisper that was meant to make Hermione laugh. But she couldn't not as Snape shot a nasty look back at them.

"There are conditions," he strained his chin, which emphasized how thin he'd become.

"Such as..?" Harry asked, nonchalant.

Snape remained silent.

Hermione and Draco were behind them, dressed in robes and slippers. She couldn't disguise her annoyance, not as they turned a corner and began towards the Shrieking Shack. Her stomach flipped, over and over, and if it weren't for Sirius in his Animagi form or the way that Ron glared at herself and Draco, she'd be skeptical.

But she couldn't live in fear; she simply _couldn't_.

She'd cast a small warming charm around herself and Draco, which he cuddled into. His arm rested around her shoulders, as he kept her close in the dismal January evening. It was late, perhaps after midnight, but Hermione didn't worry about the specifics of time. She'd lost weeks, it hurt to think about it too much.

"When I said, date tomorrow," Draco drawled beside her ear, in that awful way he would when he wanted to see her jump. "I hadn't meant so immediately."

"Suck it up Malfoy, don't you love sulking around in the dark?" Ron shot back, though he had half as much venom as normal.

"Oh Weasley, don't you know that all fun things in life happen in the dark." Draco couldn't stop the smirk that spread across his face, though Hermione saw his cheeks strain. He winked down at her, and she broke into a giggle she'd not been able to catch.

And it almost felt normal again.

Like she'd not died.

The Shrieking Shack looked worse than Hermione remembered. There were huge gashes in the walls and half the windows were shattered. The doors, which had been fixed to the spot, now laid strewn across the ground. She stepped over one abject piece of wood, which she couldn't place. It could have been a chair, or a table, or nothing at all.

Draco swatted a path into the glass, which allowed Hermione to step without the crackle of glass. The torn curtains blew in the soft January breeze, and it was far too cold.

As Ayers and Snape set about mending the windows and the doors, Hermione gathered Ron and Harry up into a hug. She'd seen them in passing at St. Mungo's, but it was difficult to hug people when you were bed-bound. She nestled into the crook of Harry's neck, unsure where his weight and breadth had come from. He'd become more strapping in his time as an Auror, as he lost what little gangliness he'd had. The same could be said of Ron, who looked slimmer in the face and more mature.

They were still teenagers, she thought with unsettled nerves.

They're fucking _kids_.

Draco caught each of their hands, to shake them as some test of formality. Harry and Draco shook with a competitive edge, though Harry lacked the social graces to win. Ron, however, tried to crush Draco's hand. The pair grit their teeth and drew back to wince when the other wasn't looking.

"Let's see, let's see," Sirius slapped his hands together, as he rubbed at them for warmth. A spark formed, and then the fireplace caught alight. He smiled, pleased with himself as he looked around like an excited child.

"Yes, thank you Sirius," Ayers smiled, as she waved her hands at the stairs. A few fallen planks and the banister reformed, so the second floor was accessible again.

"So, what..." Hermione waved a hand, around the room, as if something was meant to happen. "Where to we start?"

"Well, where to begin," Ayers sat cross-legged by the fire, with Sirius's head in her lap. Snape sat in an armchair, with the exposed springs in perpetual motion from an impossible draft. Harry and Ron took the couch, while Hermione sat on Draco's lap.

(She hadn't much say in the matter, he'd tugged her there.)

"What happened to you, let's start there."

Draco made a sound from the back of his throat. She realized he was using her a shield, emotionally and otherwise. His face was buried into her hair, and his mouth was pressed against her neck. It'd be quite pleasant were it not for the company of Snape and Ron, who looked like they were about to commit a murder for different reasons.

"What happened to me?" Ayers asked, a tip to her head. "Nothing I care to repeat. I'm sure Draco can agree -- "

"No," Hermione waved a hand. "I understand, you don't want to talk about... _About_ the darker elements, I understand, but you were missing for a week. Both of you," she tapped the arm around her waist, as Draco tried to burrow beneath her robe.

"It's as you expected," Snape waved a hand, loose and indifferent. "He wished to relocate your intelligence to his side, to deprive the Order of your deductive reasoning. Even if you weren't an asset to _him_ , you were exploitable."

Hermione felt ill, and wished she'd told Sirius to sod off when he'd turned up in her dorm.

"One moment," Snape pushed up, and disappeared upstairs. She stared at Ayers and the others as if she expected them to object. He came back in a few minutes, with a book in hand.

The same book Lucius had; the same one that Voldemort had stolen from her that night in Draco's room. He showed it to Hermione, though yanked it back before she could take it from him.

"This book has translocation magic on it; that is, it's a -- a form of permission, a bridge between the two people who had either copy." Snape looked at it, though it remained shut. "It responds to Draco, and only Draco."

Draco tightened his grip on her.

"Which means there's a second book out there, which _he_ may have."

"He..." Hermione said, her voice empty. "He, who?"

Snape's lips twitched at the corners, in a cruel way.

"I killed him," Hermione snapped, as she struggled to stand up.

"Did you?" Snape hummed, as he tossed the book onto the table beside her. "We don't know who was inside Draco, nor who kidnapped them. It could have been Voldemort, or someone acting on his behalf. Consider Pettigrew, Bellatrix, Crouch... He's had people act on his behalf in the past," he cocked a brow, to look down at her over the ridge of his nose. "Perhaps it was Selwyn inside Draco -- we haven't got Selwyn's body, we don't know -- "

"What about the staff?"

The room went silent.

"Staff..?" Ayers said, her voice wary.

"There wasn't any staff Hermione," Ron said, with the same caution he'd have in his voice when Hermione seemed on the verge of shouting. "Staves are... Wizards don't really _use_ staves anymore, do they?"

"No," Sirius shook his head, and sat up. Ayers kept her hand in his, and Hermione their interlocked fingers in the firelight. "Staves are more archaic, some families have them for generations, but they're ornamental, or ceremonial."

"He had a staff," Hermione repeated, her brow furrowed. "And a briefcase."

The room was still again, and she could hear the sound of curtains whipping around upstairs. She hadn't had a chance to tell anyone what had happened, just the specific events of how she'd used the knife and ended up in a fog. She remained still against Draco, unsure if the world around her had stopped or if it was her imagination.

"What sort of staff?" Snape asked, his voice dry.

"It was blackthorn, with a little... Imagine a crystal ball, but with blood inside," Hermione pinched her lips, as she tried not to be ill at the memory. "And, a little red stone -- I think, the Resurrection Stone..."

The silence returned, as everyone fixed their attention onto Hermione. But she had nothing to say, nothing of worth. Blackthorn wood was associated with the inevitability of death and had ties to the Dark Arts, but staves seemed to have more prestige than a wand. One didn't simply _make_ a staff. She chewed at her thumbnail until Draco caught her wrist, to stop her anxious gnawing.

"I'd wager that staff is what's given him control of the Inferi," Sirius pointed as if it weren't obvious.

"He had one at the wedding, it was all purple and red," Harry made a face, as if he were trying to remember the specifics.

"Yes, well, that's... That means he's..." Ayers's eyes widened, as she bundled her legs towards her chest. "Why won't he just die."

"I've been asking that for years," Harry muttered, as he slumped back into the couch.

The loungeroom of the Shrieking Shack felt so much less like a home than usual. The moonlight poured through the cracks in the walls, and the curtains continued to dance in the breeze. Hermione adjusted herself before she climbed out of Draco's lap. He followed without question, as she walked to the foot of the stairs. 

"Has anyone looked upstairs?" She asked, as she tossed a curious look between the others in the room.

"Not much to see," Sirius shrugged, as he pushed himself up. He helped Ayers up, who wobbled to her feet beside him. She smiled, bright red and brilliant as ever. Even with the scars across her throat, and the smaller ones over her hands. Hermione wondered if she had worse, hidden away, but that was too invasive.

Hermione cast a glance upward and stepped away.

"It's late," Snape said, with a twist of his wrist. He gathered his robes, to step towards the exit.

"Hold on," Hermione cut in, her hands raised. "Is there nothing else to go on? What about you, your time here, for... What was it, seven months?"

Snape arched a brow at her.

"Didn't you learn anything?" The words popped out before she had a chance to think them through.

"Being bed-bound for seven months gave me perspective," he said, his voice as distant as before. "Though perhaps not in the ways you imagine."

"But you tried to kill Ayers, didn't you," Hermione took a step towards him. "You tried and failed -- "

"And?"

Hermione didn't have an answer for that.

"It's okay, Hermione," Ayers reached out for Hermione but withdrew her hand before she made contact. Instead, she worried them into her oversized robes, which were thicker to protect from the weather outside. "I was meant to die, so..."

"So I could die," Harry had stood, his hands clasped by his sides. "I'd wager the only person in here who isn't meant to be dead is Ron."

"Hey, I mean, I almost died, from that poison Malfoy sent me Sixth year," Ron got up, his arms crossed over his chest.

"My point being," Harry waved a hand, to stop Ron before he started on Draco. "A lot happened, before the war, after it... But, I trust you all, and we all want the same thing."

Snape and Sirius glared one another down, while Ron and Draco had their own pointed exchange.

"For this to be over," Harry added, as if by necessity.

"I'd love for this to be over," Ayers agreed, sheepish. Her eyes raked over Snape before she fixed her attention to the floor between them. There were loose planks all over the house, which unsettled Hermione.

"We should go through this place," Hermione said, her tone sharp. "Not tonight, but we need to pull it apart, see if there's anything. If Voldemort was here for seven months, there's bound to be something here. And Selwyn's house -- "

"We already searched that," Snape cut in.

"Then we search the house again. There's crucial pieces missing," Hermione stumbled on the spot. " _Severus_."

The same eerie silence overtook the room, as each of them reacted with the same distaste they'd had for the name _Voldemort_ before his name became a habit. Snape was the least affected, as he stared down at her, his face bland. And he turned, to leave, no words, just the rhythmic smack of his heel against the planks of wood.

"I don't like him having that book," Hermione said, her voice sharp.

"He's the best person to have it," Ayers said, her voice meek. "He's the only one to lie to Voldemort with any success..."

"You think that's still true, now?" Hermione pivoted, to arch her brow at Ayers.

"I do," she crossed her arms over her chest. "We have plenty to think about now, even without the book..." she looked up to Sirius, who seemed lost in her face.

"I'm glad you're okay," Hermione smiled, her expression wearied as she looked over the woman. She looked much the same as she had, if not a little thinner and tired around her eyes. The scars flickered a dark pink, though she couldn't linger on them for long. Everyone had their scars, physical and otherwise. 

Ayers pulled her into a hug and she allowed it. The goodbyes began, as Sirius left with Harry and Ron, as he'd taken to crashing on their couch. The fireplace made the trip easy, through the half-there fireplace. Ron had hugged her, as did Sirius and Harry, but Ron's hugs always clung to her in a different way.

Hermione caught the shape of a dark figure by the door, but her heart settled when she realized it was Snape, fixed in place as he stared them down.

"Back to school," Ayers exhaled through grit teeth.

"Actually," Draco tongued the corner of his mouth, his hand curled around Hermione's waist. "I'm too tired to walk back -- my house is only a few minutes away."

Ayers shot him a bored look, though her lips curled. She raised her hands, to flap them at the pair. If she spoke, it was too quick to be deciphered, even for Hermione's impeccable ears. She rushed out the door and down the steps, as Snape glided after her much like a shadow.

"Oh, that's cruel, to make her walk back to school with Snape."

"Don't you mean _Severus_?" Draco countered, his head dipped low and his smirk fixed across his lips. It didn't hide the pang of jealousy behind his tone, nor the way his eyes flashed in the moonlight.

"I hardly see why I should have to call him _Professor_ outside of school," Hermione puffed out her chest, her head lifted.

"And Snape is too..?"

"I feel like it's rude, to call him by his last name -- I'm trying to be more..."

"On friendly terms with Snape?" Draco exhaled, his tongue raked across his teeth. "I get it -- go to him, if you feel so tenderly for him."

"Shut up," Hermione scoffed, though she had to laugh.

"Oh, now you're telling me to shut up," Draco gripped the apex of his chest, into the rich green silk of his pajamas. "I remember when you were a nice girl."

"I've never been _nice_ ," Hermione sniped back, as she leaned up to nip his throat. She rushed towards the door and down the steps, with Draco in hot pursuit. She remembered the path back to his house, two streets over, a hard left, and then -- 

His hands found the space between her underarms and ribs, as he snatched her back against him. It was January still, too cold to be outside for long. The path between Hogsmeade and Hogwarts had been covered in branches, with a magically buffed path to keep them safe. The streets of Hogsmeade had the ghost of winter draped across it, in glossy white sheets and gentle slopes.

And then she was hot, beyond heat, as Draco pressed her against a stonework wall. It was a robe store if she could recall correctly, but urban geography could take a backseat to the heat of his tongue against hers. She saw stars in her eyes like flecks of snow, as he pressed a hand to her throat, to dance his fingers against her pulse. She keened into it, and by extension, into him. But he was too close and too tall for her to control the pace, as he let his hand slide beneath her robes, the weight of his hand against her breast. His other hand had taken to her hip, to grind her against him, until she was sure he was a masochist.

"Draco," she huffed, and he moaned, and she huffed again. "We can't, not here -- "

"Oh, it's the middle of the night."

"It's freezing," she corrected, as she wriggled to get free. That drew another eager sound from him, as he grabbed a handful of her arse. " _Draco_."

His grip slackened, begrudgingly, and they managed to close the gap between this secluded Hogsmeade alleyway and his home.

(One of twelve, she remembered.)

And then she didn't remember much of anything, as Draco pressed her into the black oak door.


	2. contact contract.

_**January 2nd, 1999.** _

Hermione hadn't ever really thought about sex, not in a specific way. She had learned about it as all children do, in the confusing folds between childhood and puberty. Her parents had insisted she learn about informed consent, bodily functions, growing up -- all before she boarded the train for her First year at Hogwarts.

It had been stilted and formal, and given her a bare bones skeleton of intimacy, as defined by the dictionary. Her parents had given her several books on the subject, each with in-depth information on the mechanics of maturity.

Hermione would wager that she knew a great deal more about sex than most, in all the most useless ways. She knew the anatomy of each reproductive system, and the array of hormones that jettisoned you towards adulthood.

But this? The pressure of him against the gap between her thighs, the way her blood turned to lava beneath his touch. Or the ache that consumed her, from the spot beneath her chin all the way to her toes.

All that knowledge was useless to her.

Which made her inexperience somehow sharper, as she was wrapped up in the mechanics of it. She was overwhelmed by how his hands felt. They were too warm as they dug into the fabric of her pajamas, and as he gave up altogether on caution.

Instead, he picked her up much as he had the first time they'd kissed, hands on the backs of her thighs as he walked her towards the couches.

"Wait, wait," Hermione tapped at his shoulders, to slow the manic pace at which he'd been kissing her neck.

Draco stopped, dead in his tracks, though she remained in his grasp.

"What are we -- " she lost her nerve and voice all at once, as she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. "What're we doing?"

"Ah -- what _are_ we doing?" He raised a brow at her, mouth pink from how she'd sucked at his lips.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, as she wriggled free of his hands. He let her stand, just in front of him, his hands now instead on her hips. She would have liked to have answered, or not spoken at all. But her gaze was fixed on an eerily familiar chair, one that she'd seen Draco in, beneath Emily.

And Draco made a face, a silent wince.

She didn't want to be stuck in the past, but the place was tarnished and weighted with too much history. She crossed her arms, tight and protective, and refused to meet his eye. Whether he knew what had stopped her or not, she wasn't clear on, but they remained static as she worked through her nerves.

There was silence, as they were stuck now between honesty and the fun. But that was her specialty, ruining the fun.

"What's wrong?"

She swallowed hard, her fingers toyed with the thin satin ribbon that kept his robe tight around him.

He caught her chin with his index finger, as he tended to do. She lifted her chin by her choice, her lips puckered with unspoken panic. His gaze dashed across her face, and he could have dug straight into her eyes, her memories, but he didn't.

Instead he watched, new-found patience deep within him.

"Are you okay?" He asked, flatly. Not in a rude, cruel way, not as he used to speak to her. She hadn't adjusted to Draco yet, in how he'd catch her on every little thing, and how he'd not let her hide.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Just tell me," Draco flexed a brow, his weight shifted to one leg. "What's wrong."

"Nothing!" Hermione felt herself warm, agitated and frustrated all at once. "Must something be wrong?"

Draco looked around the room, and she watched as he puzzled over the situation they'd been put into. And something shifted in him, in his face.

And Hermione felt left out.

"Come upstairs with me?" He asked, his hands interlocked with hers.

Hermione pinched her lips together, but allowed him to lead her. He waited until she nodded, and then it was a slow ascent through the richly decorated hallways.

Silver sconces flared to life and died as they passed by. She didn't disguise her curiosity, as she leapt back a step and then forward, to watch the lights change.

"Proximity charm -- with a perpetual _lumos_ enchantment?" She tongued her lips apart, as she went to touch the flames. They were warm like a hand dryer rather than fire, and Draco allowed her the time to toy with them.

They passed a few doors, each closed and marked with ornate silver swirls on lacquered white. She touched them, too, unable to help herself.

She'd been afraid to touch anything at his mansions, but she'd learned that there was nothing too elegant for her. She just had to have the confidence to pursue it.

"What was your home like?" Draco asked, lofty.

"My home?" Hermione echoed, surprised. "Oh, um, half the size of this... Much less white and silver," she smiled, privately, and he stopped by one door. It had his name pressed into it, with silver leaf and emeralds. She wondered if they had any ugly rooms, or a house that wasn't coated in opulence. It dripped from his clothes and his hands, and in how he'd lift his chin to enunciate.

Draco reached out, and stroked the door handle. An invisible mechanism crunched between the walls and the door cracked open, at first a little, then all at once.

They were met with a smaller version of his lavish bedroom at his 'real' home. There was the same emerald bed, with hangings tasseled with silver, and black oak for all the furniture. A bookshelf sat beside a magnificent dresser, and a deep oak archway led to a bathroom.

There was no door; she narrowed her eyes at it, dubious.

But they entered, and she milled by the doorway with her hands wrought together like an ornate knot.

"What else?"

"We had a lovely backyard, with a big willow tree that my father always threatened to cut down," she narrowed her eyes at the floor, thoughtful. "And two stories, one up, one down. Maybe three or four rooms per floor, nothing like... Not like what you have."

Draco shrugged, a half-smile on his lips. "Was it cosier then?"

"Oh yes," Hermione beamed, her hands now clasped against her chest. "I had a writing desk and a set of shelves built into the wall. I had a little bay window, too, I could sit there for hours and read."

"What about my home?" His brow twitched, as he watched her face. "Doesn't much suit you, does it?"

"It's not that," Hermione shook her head. "You must know you're quite rich, more than anyone I've known. All of this is quite a lot, by most peoples' standards."

Draco's expression faltered, stuck between pride and insecurity.

"It's not a bad thing," Hermione interjected, her chin dipped. "We're just different, in where we come from."

"This isn't what I come from," he dismissed, his arms crossed. "It's a gilded frame around a rotten stump."

Hermione blinked, unsure what to make of the diversion of conversation. She played with her lips, and tugged at the cracked skin. The weather had broken them, and the kisses had split them. He paced, to his bookshelf, and then to his dresser.

She just watched, unsure what he was doing.

"I often wonder if my family would be closer," he faltered, his arms crossed. "If we were more of a family, and less of a political agenda."

"Your mother loves you dearly," Hermione reached out to him, which he leaned into.

"One person, of dozens," he scoffed. "My grandmother loved me, I suppose, but -- love isn't really a priority for the Malfoy family. Loyalty, fealty, a dedication to elders..."

Hermione took a few steps closer, her hands still knotted together. "Are you okay?"

Draco smiled, a strange, genuine smile. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Hermione frowned, as he lobbed her own words back at her. She smiled through her anger, and put her hands on her hips. "I refuse to lose my virginity to you ten paces away from where you took Emily's."

Draco's lashes fluttered, as if he'd not expected that. She watched as the pieces fell into place behind his otherwise manicured features, as his lips fought between a smile and a scoff.

"I'm not saying it has to be magical, or... Or somewhere special, or even a big deal, but I really would prefer to not have that -- " Hermione's throat felt dry, and she allowed her point to speak for itself.

"Yes, I -- I hadn't realized," he said, his voice empty. "Sorry."

"But I would like to," she said, her voice small.

Draco looked far too pleased, as he turned to face her. He'd rested his weight back against his dresser, his arms crossed. "Like to..?"

Hermione frowned.

Draco feigned innocence, wide blue eyes so sweet for a man so evil.

"I'd like to do that, at some point, maybe not _here_ , but, somewhere."

Draco tossed his head, to knock his loose fringe from his eyes. He arched his brow, higher and sharper than usual. "You've lost me."

"You're such a prick," Hermione squared her jaw, her teeth ground as she stepped towards him.

"You're the one who can't even say it," he smiled, a twinkle to his eye she wanted to extinguish. "I've been tongue deep in you, and you can't even admit you want to -- "

And extinguish it she did; she closed the gap, her hand knotted into his hair and her hips pressed against him. His hands scrabbled on the dresser behind him, to push himself up, but she bore down. The kiss deepened, further, to fight the laughter that bubbled from him.

She kept control as she drew his head back, just a touch, enough to bite at his throat. 

He did this too often; baited her, broke her, until she was consumed by him.

But she didn't care.

Instead, she yelped with glee as he spun them, to sit her onto the top of the dresser. She heard several bottles of cologne jostle, while one thunked to the floorboards. The bottle either shattered or dislodged, as the room began to stink of whatever Draco wore. Or maybe that was because she was buried in his throat, as he yanked her closer by the thighs.

The kisses turned desperate as she tugged off his robe, and shirt, and she wished she'd not been so sentimental downstairs. This room was different enough, it wasn't the lounge where she'd sat with Ayers and Snape after the wedding, or where they'd comforted a drunken Narcissa.

Instead it was Draco's private room, dripping with emerald and icy silver. She felt her head tip sideways as Draco bit at her throat, softly, then all too much. She moaned, too loud, but it wasn't as if there was anyone to hear them -- except for a crackle and snap, as two feet tapped onto the floor.

"Tripley!"

"Herminy! Mister!"

Draco stilled, shirtless and wedged between Hermione's thighs. He smiled, but it curdled in the warmth of the room. " _What_?"

"I felt's something out's of places," Tripley tip-toed over, to wave a hand at the cologne. It poured back into the broken glass bottle, which reformed and landed on the dresser. "You'd needs to be's more careful," she tutted.

Draco rested his forehead on Hermione's shoulder, while she massaged his neck.

Tripley stared at them, and a slow look of dawning spread over her face. " _Oh..._ "

"Yes, _oh._ "

"I'll get your mother!" Tripley bounced on the spot, her hands clapped together.

"Please, no -- "

And Tripley vanished.

Draco and Hermione panicked on the spot, as he helped her down from the dresser, while Draco redressed. He was cursing, in language so colorful that Hermione had to tune him out. Instead, she focused on fixing her hair, her eyes blown wide in the dark.

And two cracks followed, one the little Tripley with a massive smile on her face. The other was Mrs. Malfoy, dressed in an ornate black lace robe with an even dressier negligee beneath. She had a coil of parchment in her right hand, a glass of wine in her left.

"Sneaking off-campus, Draco?" Mrs. Malfoy said, in a sleepy drawl.

"We came with Ayers and Snape," Draco fidgeted with his buttons.

"Mmh, I'm sure," Mrs. Malfoy narrowed her gaze at Draco, before she slid her attention to Hermione. "Pleased to see you living life to it's fullest."

"Yes, well, Draco wanted to show me the rest of your home, as I'd not seen it -- "

Mrs. Malfoy waved a hand, to silence her. "It's late, and I hardly want to know the details."

Hermione balked, but kept herself level. Draco remained static, his hands slung into his pockets.

"I've delayed too much," she uncoiled the parchment, and picked through it with manicured nails. She plucked one piece out, to glance over it. Once satisfied, she offered it to Hermione.

Hermione frowned at it.

Mrs. Malfoy kept it extended, though she wiggled it in the air.

"Mother -- "

"Shush Draco, she has to sign it at some point."

"Sign what?" Hermione said, uncomfortable in so many ways.

" _Draco._ " Mrs. Malfoy's hand dropped, her mouth formed into a small 'o'. "You said you told her."

"I -- "

"You _lied_ to your own mother, is that what I'm to believe?"

Draco turned pink across his cheeks and ears, his brows furrowed.

Hermione reached out, to snatch the paper from Mrs. Malfoy. In bold, bright silver, the words 'courtship contract' were written in beautiful calligraphy. She boggled, unable to read. Her brows rose, higher and higher, as she slowly turned to look up at Draco.

"There's no point, mother."

"Oh!" Mrs. Malfoy threw her hands up, which showered wine and parchment around them. "Look at my beloved son, above traditions, above the way of things -- "

"We almost died," Draco sniped back.

"You said she'd think on it after the Hallow's Eve Charity Event, and again last week," Mrs. Malfoy tossed her liquid blonde hair over her shoulder, as it slunk around her face and shoulders in her fit. "If you're going to date, she's not exempt -- no offense, darling."

"None taken," Hermione said with such ice that Draco shivered. Mrs. Malfoy remained unaffected, as she glowered at her son. "I'll read through it and send it via owl, if I agree."

"You don't have to," Draco caught her wrist, to take the contract.

"I know I don't have to," she drew away, her brow arched up at him. "But I want to see what this is all about."

"Simple things," Mrs. Malfoy waved a hand. "About security, privacy, and protection against theft or exploitation. That sort of thing."

"A non-disclosure agreement for a relationship?" Hermione asked, as she skimmed the parchment. There were dozens of bullet points and subsections. It was too dark to read in full, but she wanted to. Even if she ended up with it in flames, torn to pieces, she wanted to know what this was about.

"This is ridiculous," Draco spat.

"Actually," Mrs. Malfoy said, her polished nail pointed at Draco. "You sneaking away from school to break your chastity vow is ridiculous."

"Mother," Draco repeated, heat in his chest and face.

Hermione's lips crimped into a smile.

"You scare Tripley half to death, and drag poor Hermione out of bed for what, child?" She exhaled through her teeth. "Have you forgotten your place?"

"No," Draco said, anger languished beneath her calm voice.

Hermione was stuck between laughter and fright, as she pieced together what Mrs. Malfoy had already worked out. She had found them in Draco's room, ravished and half-dressed, as she had on Hallow's Eve. Their relationship was no secret.

But a contract?

...

_**January 3rd, 1999.** _

Hermione awoke in her own bed, back at Hogwarts. She and Draco had trudged back through the sleet and snow, in perfect silence. He had kissed her good night, and parted off for his dormitory. She had enjoyed how off-kilter his mother had made him, even if it was to her own mortification.

It was a frosty Sunday morning, with all the windows framed with swirls and patterns. Most of the plants in their dorm had died off, or gone to sleep. Some flourished, like the Frost Berries. They were much like a blueberry, but somewhat translucent. They were often used in burn treatment elixirs, and dragon trainers would often use them to mitigate small burns.

Hermione loved her wealth of knowledge, _sometimes_. Even if it was most often a hindrance, as she tried to recall all the facts about something rather than _enjoy_ it.

The Glimmertree was all angles and frosted, like a caricature of a tree rather than a tree. It was so thin and tall, spread towards the glassed over sky.

Hermione passed Theo and Blaise, who had their brooms in her laps. They seemed to be waiting on something, as they looked back towards their dorms on repeat. She climbed the little nook designed for Ravenclaws to nest in, and took a blueberry muffin from the wicker basket. She dropped a Sickle into it, and it vanished. It came back with three more.

She left them, dissatisfied. 

She didn't wait for anyone else, as she pressed across the grounds and to the Library.

The courtship contract was tucked beneath her arm, and she had more questions than usual.

The Library had been pieced together first semester, though if you looked closely at some bookshelves the fried edges of books would remain clear. Several shelves had been replaced with new wood, which mixed with the old wood.

Her ring guided her, the silver thread desperate to latch to a book that would help her. It led her left, right, and down, down, down, all the way to the non-fiction and the non-fantastical. The worn carpet puckered around old nails, and the occasionally exposed floorboards made her think of how many students had walked over them, before.

The Library always made her introspective.

She set herself down, by the Marriage Law section she'd found Malfoy nestled in, right beside Magical Law.

And she read.

First, discerningly. Only the book that the ring had taken her to, the one with yellowed edges and a title about Pure-blood marriage. She explored from there, a book about great romances, which wasn't helpful in the least. From there she spiraled, deeper and deeper, until her gaze clapped to the words she was after.

 _"Courtship Contracts_."

"I should have known."

Hermione jumped, as she slammed her book shut onto her thumb. She was faced with Pansy, who had a thick book on magical law as it pertained to underage wizards. Hermione narrowed her eyes.

"Ol' Cissy gave you the courtship contract, right?"

Hermione remained unmoving.

"Yeah, I got it... Fuck, I think Fourth Year?" Pansy tapped her cheek, which flashed a silver charm bracelet. It had her initials and Daphne's, which made Hermione smile.

"How'd you know?"

"Why else would you have a book on magical marriage?" She gestured at Hermione. "Unless you're trying to help Ron and Harry tie the knot."

"Um, no." Hermione shook her head. "That is... I'm not sure what the contract is for -- "

"For you to make your claim known on Draco, vice versa, unless he voids it."

"But, if I allow him to claim me, but he's the only one who can void it-- "

Pansy flexed a brow. "Yup. You're his until he says he doesn't want you. And he could have more contracts, as many as he likes. But if you pledge yourself to him..." Pansy danced her fingers in the air.

"I'm his, forever."

"He's not that much of a prick," Pansy shrugged, as she adjusted her grip on her book. "He'd probably let you go, if he got bored. Like he did with me."

There was no anger in that, not as Hermione expected. She frowned, the book rested on her thighs as she watched Pansy.

"It's mostly to protect them from you, trying to steal all their money, or like..." Pansy rubbed her chin. "Spilling secrets."

"And what if I don't sign it?"

Pansy raised her eyebrows, her lips cut into a smile. "Ooh, I don't know, but I'd love to find out." She smiled, as sweet as pickle juice, and spun to walk off towards the front desk.

She glanced over the specifics again, but it didn't strike her as malevolent. But the idea that he could, in effect, own claim to her indefinitely made her skin crawl. She gathered up the books, the contract, and set off towards Professor Ayers' private quarters.


	3. a sirius case.

_**January 3rd, 1999** _

Hermione walked the familiar path to Ayers' office, as she'd traveled here before. Back when it was McGonagall's office, packed with scotch fingers and the blackest of teas.

She avoided the heavy knight, the one that had taken offense to Draco's touch. She almost wished she'd brought him with her, but he was the reason she was here.

All she wanted was honesty, but she was a creature of spite.

Ayers appeared seconds after Hermione knocked, though she looked busy. She was always busy, in truth, it wasn't a change of pace. Not even as the glistening pink scar rested across her throat, the origins of it unclear to Hermione. She'd not spoken to Ayers much since she'd been at St. Mungo's, and not seen her outside of classes alone.

"Ah, I was expecting you," Ayers said, the door kicked open with her free foot. Her arms were full of books, and Hermione tamped down her sense of panic.

"Are you going -- "

"No, no, no, I'm not leaving mid-semester, no," she beamed. She dropped the books into the filing cabinet that Hermione had seen her use before, and the twenty-high stack of books vanished into a five inch deep drawer. "Settling in, actually."

Hermione felt a pleasant warmth take over her throat, as she saw the room look much as it had when McGonagall had lived here. She could see the warm scarlet rug and the mahogany shelves. It was rather like seeing an after shot from one of those home makeover magazines, the ones her parents had piles of at their shared practice.

"Binns um, was -- " she made a hand gesture. "They found a journal of his, from before he passed on. Turns out he was still around on unfinished business, some rival of his at the Ministry. Vowed he'd live to see the man die."

Hermione betrayed her confusion with rapid blinks and a popped open mouth. "I thought he did it out of a love for teaching."

Ayers shrugged, heavy and relieved. There were still too many books on every surface, but at least it seemed organized by relevancy. One pile was dedicated to Herbology, another to Dark Arts, and one about the practices of Wizengamot. That pile, however, seemed to be primarily parchment, aside form three books about the chronology of the Wizengamot itself. 

"Making a case," she waved her hands at the pile, though her head snapped to the side when Sirius appeared.

Hermione thanked Gryffindor that he was clothed, as she really couldn't handle _that_.

"Don't mind me," he put his hands up, a slack smile on his lips. "Just visiting."

"Trying to get an official pardon?" Hermione smiled in spite of Sirius' devil-may-care strut around the castle. McGonagall had allowed his visit, were Hermione to guess. That, or he'd sneaked inside, as he had done in her Third year.

"Lotta legal stuff," Sirius made a sour face, as he flopped on the couch. Ayers followed, though he moved to pull her onto his lap, he stopped himself short. Instead he pulled up a few flasks, which glittered silver.

"Testimonies?" Hermione asked, softly.

"Harry. Dumbledore, a few others," he gnawed his lip. "Snape too, actually -- all from before I went and died, you know."

Ayers pursed her lips.

"Just, y'know, flop, dead, I was gone -- "

"Stop."

Sirius flexed his brows, a self-satisfied smile on his lips.

"We were going to ask you if you could help, by giving us anything you remember about Pettigrew, or the like," Ayers drew one leg up, to curl it beneath herself. She had her hair up, messy and dull. She looked worn out, as much as Hermione felt worn out herself. 

"Of course." Hermione fidgeted with her hands, her gaze dropped. "Actually, I needed your help with something, Professor."

Ayers heaved a sigh, for effect rather than out of genuine annoyance. "This isn't going to be some simple question about the domestic rights of merfolk in twelfth century Venice, is it."

"It's about a contract," Hermione skirted her gaze at Sirius, then back to Ayers. "An agreement with regards to my relationship with Draco."

"Oh no, courtship contract!" Sirius gasped, loud and breathy. He broke into a fit of giggles, which made him look fifteen again. "Is Cissy really making you jump through the hoops?"

Ayers rolled her gaze sideways to Sirius, her lips pursed tight over her teeth. He stopped giggling, at least out loud, and Hermione was thankful for that much.

"Am I the only one who's never heard of this?" She said, her face bright red.

"You'd have no reason to hear about it," Ayers cut in, to stop Sirius before he answered. "The Weasley family _should_ participate in it, on a traditional level, but they don't. Um, I say should -- "

"But the Weasleys are a Pure-blood disgrace, which is why I love 'em," Sirius pointed his fingers at Hermione like guns, as he flopped sideways so his head was on Ayers' lap.

"Yes," Ayers huffed through her nose, so that Sirius' bangs blew about. "Each Pure-blood family is expected to court on an official basis, and given the nature of their wealth and their status, it's to protect against things like unwanted heirs, fiscal concerns, family secrets."

"S'why I ran away," Sirius adjusted his head in Ayers' lap, though Hermione didn't miss the way he looked up at her.

"You refused the contract?" Hermione asked, her voice low.

"Uh," Sirius' face deepened, red around the edges. "I wanted to court someone who my mother didn't approve of, shall we say."

"Ayers?"

"Remus, actually," he tongued his inner cheek, his lashes fluttered shut. "So Draco wants you to sign a contract?"

Hermione blinked back her confusion, though she wouldn't say she was strictly confused. She hadn't known either of them too deeply, or too broadly. How they lived as teens was outside of her realm of knowledge.

"I can take a look for you," Ayers smiled, her fingers brushed through Sirius' temple hairs. "Make sure it's nothing about your eternal soul."

"Pft, knowing the Malfoys', it'd be more than that."

Hermione dug through her satchel, to bring out the condensed contract that she'd poured over the night before. And that morning. She felt it warm to her touch, though that could have been from any number of things. It was a relief to pass it to Ayers, who specialized in magical law and document fidelity. That, mixed with Sirius' knowledge of Pure-blood politics, put her further at ease.

They sat in companionable silence as Ayers read. Hermione had a book of her own she'd borrowed, about a clan of siren that lived beside Ireland that gestated as merpeople, only to turn into krakens and giant beasts of the sea when they consumed enough sailors. It seemed closer to myth than reality, and so she counted it as 'reading for fun'. She found a deep respect filled her whenever she read from authors who treated their subjects as sentient beings, rather than animalistic mistakes.

"From what I can tell," Ayers interrupted her focus, for which she was thankful. Sirius had begun to snore, though his foot twitched like he was on the starting mark for a race. "It's mostly about family secrecy, and retention of funds."

"Oh," Hermione frowned. "All that for secrecy and financial security?"

Ayers' expression pinched, her lips pursed and her eyes down-turned. "Well, a third of it pertains to background and blood status -- "

Hermione's brows made a break for her hairline.

"But that's been um..." She flipped to it, where thick, oozing black now marked the page. It wasn't static, though, and so the words would uncurl and reveal between the blotches of ink. The words 'worthy' and 'pure' fizzled beneath the inky black, the silver leaf crisped. "I think they amended it for you."

"But they left it in."

"These documents go back to the... Whenever the Malfoy family _became_ the Malfoys." Ayers flipped to another section, which was dedicated to an extensive family tree. "They can't really take things out, they can only add things. To remove a clause nulls the whole document."

"That's excessive."

"Welcome to Pure-bloods," Sirius mumbled, his lolling mouth now spit-laden around the edges. He pushed up from Ayers' plush thighs, his eyes fluttered out of time. "We're nothing if not excessive."

"So, I can't talk about anything they tell me, and I can't steal their money, or lay claim on it." Hermione picked at her nails.

"Uh..." Ayers blushed around her eyes. "You can't hurt the family, can't kill them, obviously, people would do that -- sneak into families to assassinate them... That, and if you get pregnant out of wedlock, the baby is pretty much void, like... You can't get pregnant then shame him into marrying you -- "

"Oh, there go my graduation plans," Hermione muttered.

"You'd be surprised!" Ayers laughed. "It's not funny. No, sorry, um, I just mean, people will try to um, cheat their way into a Pure-blood family that way, love potions, or, just -- "

"Sex," Sirius said, his tone flat. "You can just say sex, Kitty, she's nineteen."

Hermione rubbed her face with her hands, her eyes furrowed against the pressure.

"She's a student -- "

"She's ninteen," Sirius repeated, baffled. He raised his hands at Ayers, palms flat. "When a witch and a wizard get bored with their marriage, they -- " She slapped them together. "Baby."

"Thank you both," Hermione exhaled, sharp and deep.

"Wait, no," Ayers flapped her hands. "No, it's quite serious, because if you sign the contract, you can't leave it. Not unless Draco lets you."

Hermione faltered.

"Just, really think about it," Ayers said, her voice soft. "Do you love him enough for that?"

...

The sky was a brilliant blue as she emerged, though the air was bitter. The trees laid bare on the horizon, the grass buried in a thick layer of snow. She hoped the werewolves were okay, though she doubted they'd appreciate her concern. 

A few stray flyers buzzed around the Quidditch pitch, though the stands were speckled with faces. She couldn't see anyone clear enough, though one figure far outstripped their competition in pure speed.

Mindless, she began to make a beeline for the pitch, her arms crossed tight and her expression vague. 

And yet, she arrived, her lips pursed and her bag too heavy. She walked up to the Slytherin seating area, slow steps at first, though she rushed the last few. It left her cheeks red and her breath flush in her lungs.

Draco leaned against the barrier, his broom at his side and dirt smudged across his face. He laughed at a joke she'd not heard, from a girl she didn't recognize. Her stomach flipped, nasty and quick, as she stared with fear-brown eyes.

"No, you could!"

"I doubt any team would take me on," Draco deflected with a swat of his hand, which tossed his gaze towards her. Her breath caught low in her throat, ice eyes so much warmer than warranted. "Oh, hello Granger."

Hermione huffed and puffed on the spot, her scarf bunched beneath her wild, wide locks. She felt like she'd inflated with indignant air, as she stared down her boyfriend.

Draco gulped around a laugh, as he pushed away from the barrier to approach her. His hands were deeply cold from their time on his broom, though she leaned into them the same. He cupped her cheeks and kissed her nose, her cheek, and her fear melted.

"You frightened me," Hermione laughed, quietly, as he pressed his forehead to hers.

"I'm sorry?"

"I thought you'd forgotten me or something -- " she felt herself yanked much like a Portkey back to when she was a little bushy-haired brat with a superiority complex. She was rivaled only by the boy who held her now, his slick, cold shapes a direct contrast to her breadth and warmth.

"I didn't spend eight years wanting you to forget you," he kissed her, softly, simply, and she felt his hands warm against her cheeks.

And maybe Hermione glared past his shoulder at the Slytherin girl with red hair, twirled up into a braid atop her tiny head. The girl remained unaffected, her features angular and cool, so very Slytherin.

"You missed the ah, game, but I can always show you my tricks later."

Hermione refocused onto him, bemused. "I think it's rather brazen to show off all your tricks to a stadium of people."

"Ah, I'm cunning enough to know which ones to keep up my sleeve," and his hand dropped to sneak into her sleeve, to tickle her wrist.

"Sickening," the girl exhaled, though she smiled.

"Cambridge, no one asked you," Draco shot back, his voice sleek like an arrow. "Don't you have duties to attend to?"

The girl snatched up the crate of Quidditch balls, every inch a petulant teenage girl that Hermione had never been. She sashayed past, though she didn't seem intent on Draco or Hermione, and rather bored with life altogether.

"A friend of yours?" Hermione asked, her tone falteringly indifferent.

"I took a leaf from Potter's book you see, started a fan club -- "

Hermione stepped back, her chin dipped and her gaze on fire.

Draco just smiled, wider and wider. She hated how he'd bait her into grand reactions with so little words, but it didn't stop the sting at the base of her rib cage. He took her hands back into his, his gaze rolled to the skies. "She's the Slytherin Seeker, she borrowed the supplies for us."

"Ginny couldn't?"

Draco's smile twitched.

"She's still not playing?"

Draco shook his head, a sidelong glance at the field. "She'll be okay, in time. We're all still getting there, you know," he knocked an index finger against the underside of her chin, to coax her into a kiss. It was deeper this time, more intent. And she'd have fallen for it, were it not for the weight of her satchel on her shoulder.

...

"Draco," Hermione drew back. "I can't sign that contract."

"I assumed you wouldn't."

Hermione balked. She didn't like to be predictable, even though she had a favorite mug and a favorite arm chair and a favorite quill.

She didn't like realizing how predictable she was, that was it.

"It's more a -- ah, my family thing."

"A Pure-blood thing."

Draco's features crinkled like origami, warped at the corners. "I don't really like calling it that."

Hermione let her hands relax into her lap. She looked up at him, as he sat across from her on Pansy and Daphne's makeshift double bed.

"Calling it that implies purity, pure, impure, it's all -- " he licked his lips apart, as if a wider mouth would make it easier to speak. "I've had Muggle blood on my hands. I've had my mother's blood, too."

Hermione unfurled her History of Magic essay on merfolk, though her gaze remained on Draco.

"It's all the same. Red. Just, red."

"What happens now then?"

"My mother will continue to pester you about it." He looked over the gauze, until his gaze rested on Emily's old bed.

Bethany had moved to the other dorm. Hermione didn't blame her.

"Ah, I suppose if you bequeath unto me a little bundle of blonde joy -- "

"I beg your pardon!" Hermione's voice pitched higher. "First, way to make it sound as archaic as possible. Second -- "

"Squirt out a fleshy bean then."

"Second!" Hermione pressed on, her face matted deeply with disgust. "If we had a child, it would likely be brunette, genetically speaking -- "

Draco smirked. "You don't know?"

Hermione frowned.

"The blonde is rather ah," he made a hand gesture. "Dominant."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I know, yes, dominant in all senses."

"Oh shut up," Hermione fought the urge to smile.

"Please Hermione, don't be intimidated."

Hermione made a sound of annoyance as he jumped up, to leap across the beds and crash land before her. It was strange, to feel joy in a place so wracked with dread.

She tried not to look at Emily's abandoned bed, and instead focused on the wet, hot pressure of Draco's mouth against her throat.

"I love you," she said, sheepish and sweet.

"Good," he hummed against her pulse. "I'd feel rather stupid if I was alone in loving you." He nipped at a spot that made her shiver, scalp to sternum, his thighs between hers.

"And please never suggest birth is 'squirting a flesh bean' again."

Draco smirked, almost as cruel as he had in the past. "I mean you've mastered one half of that with my help.

...

Hermione stared the contract down, her hair thick and warm around her neck. Draco lay beside her, asleep and ethereal in the dark.

Pansy and Daphne had the good graces to stay gone even now, to who knows where. She had drawn her curtains and warded the door, but to her knowledge those wards remained.

As did Draco, curled around her middle with his face on her stomach.

They'd fallen asleep that way, though she doubted any professor would be pleased to know she'd let Draco finger her in the dormitories.

She tossed the contract into the shallow drawer, as she didn't have the heart to burn it.

Instead, she relaxed against her pillows, conscious of the fact she'd never actually slept beside Draco.

The phantom ache of his fingers inside her ruined the innocence of the thought, but she enjoyed it all the same.

He shifted, loose hair draped across his eyes.

And she dozed, slowly, then all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on an original high fantasy story set in Victorian Ireland about an ex-prince and a siren/merrow! :3


	4. the affair of ministers.

_**Monday - January 4th, 1999.** _

A crisp white notice sat on the otherwise yellowed notices of the dorm notice board. It spoke about the responsibilities of Eighth year students with regards to the newly arrived students; more than had arrived their first day last semester.

Hermione signed the form attached to it, pin-pricked into the cork with an ornate silver stud. The form spoke about a tutoring program for younger students who felt behind or confused. A few other Eighth years agreed to help, especially Paige, Natalie and Bethany. Draco's name had been scrawled, crossed out and written again.

She smiled, as she turned to see him approach.

"Not like you to sleep in," he tutted.

"Seven in the morning is sleeping in?" She gasped, low and amused.

"It is for you, given it's the first day of classes." He raised a brow, his arm snaked out to pull her close. "I expected to have sneaked out in the night to set up camp in front of Ancient Runes."

"I had to come back, I'd forgotten my quill," she chewed her thumbnail, her ears red. "I hope no one touched my sleeping bag."

Hermione met his lips, a pleased sound pulsed through her, chest to throat, her cheeks red. She'd never had a boyfriend at school, not unless you counted the clumsy kisses by the Quidditch Pitch with Krum, or the harrowing chase of McLaggen. Her stomach lurched at the thought, so much so that Draco winced. She'd grasped his hand tight.

"You've volunteered?" Hermione asked, her brow arched to rival his.

"I assumed you'd sign up and I'd lose you to these children with their stupidity-- "

"Draco!"

"I'm kidding," he smiled cruelly, which ruined his point. "But I thought it might be fun. Playing teacher to the youth."

"The youth?"

Draco's face fell, an immediate frown on his face.

"The youth?" Hermione repeated, her hands on her hips. 

"You know what I meant," he pinked around his edges.

They whisked off to the castle, over the thick snow field that sat between themselves and Hogwarts proper. Their greenhouse retained the warmth and humidity of somewhere tropical, but outside was wholly different.

She curled into Draco, who pecked the crown of her head between sniped at Blaise. Blaise had developed a crush on a Hufflepuff the year below them, from what Hermione could tell.

She didn't pay too close attention, given she was fixed on the peculiarity of her situation. She'd almost died a week ago, or two now. And yet here she was, expected to function as a role model to the younger students.

Then again, no one was forcing her into the tutoring. But it'd be nice to do, she thought. A nice chance to help future generations and to cement the bonds between houses.

Draco kissed her before he split off for the Slytherin table. It was strange to kiss him in such a place, when she'd smirked across the hall from him whenever an announcement favoured Gryffindor.

And instead, now, she smirked across at him because he had a very small bruise beneath the pivot of his jaw.

The mark was decidedly Hermione-shaped, if you looked at the tilt of her lips and the angle of her teeth.

The Gryffindor table was fuller, as compared to the last semester. She could see old faces, of younger students who she'd helped with homework or taken points from. They peppered each of the house tables, and some even seemed excited. She looked to the staff table, where Ayers was buried in a pile of letters. She, along with Flickwick, had taken it upon themselves to manually contacr former students based on volunteered information, to see if they'd be tempted back.

The student records had been set on fire during the siege of Hogwarts, though Draco said they'd been incomplete before that. They wanted to protect the students who were from a mixed background or wholly Muggle. 

The Daily Prophet spoke about the whereabouts of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, as dozens of people reported sightings in the week since Selwyn's body had vanished for good.

Hermione skimmed the articles with lazy interest, until her gaze was yanked forcibly to the legal section.

" _Minister Strauss in the Big House?"_

Hermione looked up at Draco across the hall but he was distracted by some conversation she'd not even be able to guess. It involved Theo, a sausage, and some corn. She refocused on the article, her brow arched high on her forehead.

_Known Ministry minister and top Auror has come under suspicion for conduct with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. These suspicions began with information from an unknown source._

_"No comment," said Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt. The MoM position was known to be the aim for Strauss. In light of the Siege of Hogwarts, the role was instead given to MoM Shacklebolt. One has to wonder if bitterness hasn't warped Strauss' loyalties._

_Strauss has been suspended and kept under house arrest as they inspect his premises for Dark Artifacts. More information will be provided as it is made available to us. If you know anything, please contact Prudence Proudmoore by owl at -_

Hermione frowned at the article, the name tickled the corners of her brain though she had no idea why. She worried her rings in circles.

A silver thread burst from the ring, which looped towards the door. She shook her hand and cleared her mind. The silver thread vanished.

"Excited for class?" Ginny slumped down beside her, her books sprawled over the table. They knocked a pitcher, which poured across the table. She whipped out her wand and vanished the juice, her face as red as her hair.

"I was," Hermione frowned, as she magicked away the juice from her lap.

"Ah, I fixed it," Ginny scoffed. She yawned, loud and wide, her arms spread into the air.

"Draco said you're not going to be doing Quidditch?"

"Oh, uh," Ginny shrugged. "No, I am, just gonna wait for another week, the curse is still..." She rubbed her fingers against her chest, though she didn't explain further.

"Not as bad as Wood, though, right?"

"Nah," Ginny settled into a plate of scrambled eggs, her gaze slanted towards Hermione. "Malfoy being good?"

Hermione's expression cracked like an egg against the rim of a metal bowl, messy and wide. "I -- what does that even mean?"

There was a glimmer to Ginny's eye that Hermione didn't much like. She looked away, towards the door where her ring had lit up. She thumbed it in circles, until it heated up.

 _Stop stressing_.

Hermione glared at the inscription, then at Draco.

He winked across the hall at her, as he continued to pay polite attention to Theo's ongoing theatrics. 

_Don't stare,_ Hermione willed back, her cheeks red as she tried to tune into a conversation between Neville and Ginny. Neville had asked about a date, as in what he should do on one. Something about Hannah.

 _Were you the sun,_ it paused, and she frowned at it. _I'd gladly go blind._

She sent him a nasty look, while he continued to smirk. He didn't even look at her this time, which made it worse.

By Ancient Runes, she was by his side with the Daily Prophet clutched in front of her. She had expected to be excited or terrified about her final stint of classes and their impending exams, but instead she was fixed to the name in ink. She felt Draco's chin slot into the crook between her cheek and her shoulder, his ear pressed to hers.

"Stuck on a crossword?"

"Stuck on a name," she hummed. "Strauss... Does the name Strauss mean anything to you?"

Draco hesitated, though he withdrew. He reached out towards the newspaper, his palm flat and his brow furrowed. She handed across the Prophet, to point out the article. It'd been crimped where the heat of her hand had pinched it, and she wished she'd fixed it before she'd handed it across. Instead, she watched with rapt attention as he read. He mechanically walked alongside her into their Ancient Runes class.

Professor Babbling lost her eyebrows behind her choppy bangs when she saw Draco and Hermione hand in hand. She made a strange face that Hermione couldn't quite define, but lapsed back into nonchalance just as quick.

Fair, given this time last semester, Hermione had run out of the class crying.

Had it really been four months?

They spent the class in amicable silence, though Draco hadn't yet answered her about the Prophet. He'd slid it back over to her, neat and folded. They instead focused on their classwork, which involved translations from other dialects that flowed into their English counterparts. It reminded Hermione strongly of languages, which was fun.

Draco spoke perfect French along with some Spanish and German, while Hermione had a vague grasp of French. It didn't help in their Runes per say, but it was fun to compare notes all the same.

...

By the end of the day, Hermione was ready to settle in for homework. She'd still not caught up completely with the work she'd missed before the holidays. Not to mention all the NEWTs specific exam preparations. Panic clutched her chest tight, as she tried not to think about all the exams she was bound to fail. She'd missed so much of her classes and her work suffered.

Plus, her relationship with Draco ate into her thoughts.

She had to _focus._

And yet -- 

"Draco," Hermione nudged his mouth away from hers, as he hovered above her. It was dinner time, or so her stomach said. They'd sprinted back to the dorms early, under the pretense of study. Instead, she was studying the edges of his teeth and the heat of his breath in the hollow of her mouth.

"Mh?" He hummed, his name as good as a pet name.

"We should actually study, you know."

Draco made an unexpected sound, one she rather liked except for the fact it'd make studying more difficult. He rested back onto his calves, no longer pinning her wrists to his bed. She blinked in confusion, at the smell of the boys dorm and the fact his bed smelled so much like him. Spice and fresh grass, like he'd just jumped off a broomstick.

"This is fun, though," she ran a hand through her hair, her face red.

"I'm just fun to you?" He said, mock-offense in his tone. "No wonder you wouldn't sign the contract."

"Oh please," Hermione smiled, as she scooted closer to him. She kissed his neck, once, before she realized her bra had come undone. She shot him a nasty look and he smiled, unaffected.

"No, I get it, I'm just _fun_ \-- "

"Shut up," she repeated, exasperated. "You aren't fun. You're a burden."

Draco's eyes flashed, and at first she thought he was genuinely mad. Instead, he swiped forward, to yank her close, his lips against hers. She heaved a sigh into the kiss but allowed it. She needed to study, yes, but they'd only get busier from here. Not to mention what would happen after school, if he was going to study further, or travel, or get a job, or -- 

"You're thinking too much," he nipped her neck.

"I'm not."

"You're all locked up," he shook her, gently, to rattle her limbs. "I can feel it."

"Your mother -- "

"Oh, fantastic topic --"

"She said you took a chastity vow?"

Draco's expression strained, around his eyes. His teeth audibly grit, as he let his arms go limp. "It's not a vow-vow, I won't die."

"But your family wants you to wait..."

Draco's lips parted, and an ugly laugh surfaced. "No offense, but I don't give a fuck what my family wants me to do with my -- " he tongued his lips, a vague gesture at himself. " _Business_."

"Because you slept with Pansy and Emily." Hermione blinked, thoughtful. "Did Emily sign the contract?"

Draco made a face. "Maybe, I don't know."

Hermione shuffled back, her head angled. "Draco."

Draco stumbled over a few responses, so much so that his expression fell altogether. He'd been warm and candid, until that moment. The moment she feared, where she'd see the boy who'd gotten bored.

"Did Emily sign the contract?"

He shrugged, limply.

"She was so loyal to you, so protective... Because she was stuck with you."

"Stuck with me?" Draco scoffed, loudly. "I told her I didn't want to be with her in any measurable way. If she chose to go to my mother, to court me or sign that blasted thing, that's her problem, not mine."

Hermione felt her throat strain as she got up from the bed. The muffling charm broke, along with any privacy wards, but she didn't care. She snatched up her shoes and her satchel, to storm out of the boys dorm. Neville said 'hello' as she passed, though he bit down any further conversation as she sprinted past him. She made a beeline for her dorm, to throw herself into her bed.

And she fell asleep, her stomach ached and her arms latched around her pillow.

...

_**Tuesday - January 6th, 1999.** _

It wasn't Draco's fault that Emily had pursued the contract. If she had, that is. Hermione could only assume she had. It seemed like the sort of thing she'd do, as she seemed to want Mrs. Malfoy's approval and she wanted to be the Future Mrs. Malfoy. But the thought that she was so devoted because she had no other choice haunted her. What if the contract forced that into you, a blood dedication to a man who thought of you as a bit of fun.

She endured Transfiguration and Charms with little deviation from her usual; she took notes and she focused and she excelled. She didn't hate him, nor was she angry at him. She didn't know how to feel. He'd told her not to sign the contract, he didn't want her to commit.

But that caused a whole other slew of emotions.

By lunch, she'd buried herself in her notes from last semester. She'd not catalogued them correctly, and so she had to double-check them in detail.

And that's how she found her list from her first week back, Ayers' name alongside a crossed-out Strauss, which had been burned to a crisp in Emily's wrath.

Strauss.

The Minister who'd checked the Malfoy property and confiscated artifacts of a dark nature. Hermione's eyes roved the page, his name having been kicked out of her pursuit by Ginny's loud arrival. Not to mention Draco's lack of response, even though he _knew_ Strauss. He had to have known the name, he had gone to the Malfoy mansion and he'd been the one to tear their house apart.

She strode over to the Slytherin table, which was sparse as lunch was coming to an end. Draco was beside Daphne and Pansy, who were in talks about a trip to Paris they wanted to take. A few First Years spread to make room for Hermione, to leaned onto the table with her full weight.

"Why didn't you tell me you recognized Strauss?"

Draco looked at her, so much like he used to it made her heart hurt.

"I asked you yesterday about Strauss and you acted like you didn't know who he was," Hermione put her hands flat on the wooden table.

And he shrugged, the same limp shrug from yesterday.

"The man responsible for searching your mansion for Dark Artifacts gets called into questioning about ties to Voldemort and you act like that's not suspicious -- " 

"You shouldn't say his name," said a little blonde girl with her hair in pigtails.

Hermione pivoted her gaze to the girl, her gaze on fire. "I should and I will, if I want to."

Draco made a sound, but it was something between a laugh and a scoff. He, Pansy and Daphne began to pack up. The cold shoulder annoyed her to no end, even as Draco refused to meet her eye. He didn't seem haughty or proud as he usually did, as there was a slump to his stance. He seemed to catch it in how she eyed him, as he raised his chin and shot her a smile.

"Where are you going?" Hermione whined as she ran down the length of the house tables, with Draco on the opposite side.

"I wouldn't want you to get stuck with me."

And he left with Pansy and Daphne, and Hermione glared after him.

At least they had Defense Against the Dark Arts next; he could only hide for so long.


	5. some kinda clause.

_**Tuesday - January 5th, 1999.** _

"Now, about Strauss."

" _Gesundheit_."

Hermione nudged Draco with her elbow, her brow set. She unpacked her books onto her desk, which had been Draco's desk. People had their preferred partners, given how Neville had moved to sit with Ginny and Pansy had sat beside Daphne. She rolled her gaze back around to her boyfriend, who she'd bolted away from the evening before. It'd occurred to her that this running and crying thing wasn't going to work, not if she expected to be with him...

That is, not unless she expected to be with him long term.

And she had arrived at her point of anxiety anew, as if she'd not been stressing about it for the past few days. As if her future as Mrs. Malfoy wasn't a very real threat. Or promise. She'd not made peace with any of it, least of all Draco's insistence that she shouldn't sign the contract. She looked him dead in the eye, and while she bore the Slytherin ring, she'd not use it to pry. The Hufflepuff ring would stop her attempts anyway, she was sure. And even if they didn't, she wanted him to admit it.

To admit that he wasn't serious about her, and this was still fun.

And that was fine.

Even if her chest clenched and she felt anything but fine.

"Today class," Professor Proudfoot began, her hands lofted above her head. "We shall be reviewing the history of manipulation and indirect execution of Dark Arts."

Hermione's chin regressed into her neck, her lips drawn between her teeth. She watched as everyone around her groaned and shifted, their textbooks drawn from their bags. It had been a class of practical emphasis before the holidays, but now they were asked to refocus on theoretical?

Draco hadn't missed a beat, his book spread between them as if he expected them to share. She kept her own tome pinched between her thumb and fingers, tension stapled between her shoulders. He cast a sidelong glance at her, those same words echoed wordlessly with how he withdrew the book.

 _Stuck with me_.

The class remained silent throughout the double DADA lesson, and she hadn't gotten an answer from him. Instead, she watched as he packed up his things seconds before the class ended, and shot up to leave. She cursed his Seeker reflexes and speed as he dodged her hand and made a beeline for the door.

"Ms. Granger," Professor Proudfoot said from the front of the class, her voice louder than her frame suggested. "A word, if you please."

Hermione watched as Draco vanished, the heat through her finger a prompt she left unchecked.

"Of course Professor."

The mixture of Seventh and Eighth years took their time to pack up and to exit, as it was a Tuesday afternoon. There wasn't a weekend to rush to, and dinner wasn't for another two hours. She stuffed her books and notes away as she waited, unsure if there was a reason for this privacy. But it seemed telling to act guilty or ask if she was in trouble.

Maybe Proudfoot was worried about her, given she'd missed lessons.

Hermione swallowed hard, not eager to replay her own trauma. She'd done quite well to block out the time she'd spent with Selwyn, alone and faced with Draco's puppet-like body. She felt cool air waft across her neck and her hands, though no windows were cracked. 

"I heard, in part, what happened."

"Pardon, Professor?"

"Meddling with Dark Magic... For good or bad, yours or others, it will change and change again." Her brow twitched, her pointed cloche hat angled to one side. She locked eyes with Hermione, a warm wash of attention lathed over the edges of her thoughts. Nothing specific, nothing aggressive, just... Curious. "Be mindful, that's all."

And the little witch sauntered off.

Hermione grimaced, her thumb pressed to the base of her finger. She rolled the ring on the spot, unsure if the time alone had been necessary. She massaged her temple, her frown deepened as she pried her ring off, to inspect the message.

 _Off-campus_.

Hermione's head snapped up, her lips parted.

He'd gone off-campus without her?

That's fine. Honestly, he's an adult, it isn't as if there was some agreement that he needed her permission to leave the campus. Except, she was the head of the Eighth year, and so if he had to clear it with any of their peers, it would be her. So in that sense, yes, he should have asked her.

But it was fine.

He'd be fine.

Family, probably, he'd not mentioned his father. For better or worse, Hermione wasn't sure. The prison had flooded, but Wizarding folk were resilient in many ways. Not to mention it was a prison submerged in the deep ocean. It wasn't as if it existed without precautions. She'd not thought to ask about his father, or if he even knew that the man had been as good as drowned.

Her fingers felt the phantom shape of the scar she'd embedded into his chest with a goblin-silver blade.

They hadn't really _talked_. It was just a series of kisses and fumbling touches until they fought or cried or both.

_Coming back?_

Hermione waited for an answer until she didn't any longer. 

If he didn't need her permission, the reverse was true.

Hermione beat a familiar path to the greenhouse dorm, bundled up in her thick robes and her hair tamed down into a braid. She was in and out like lightning, her robes exchanged for more discreet, non-student attire and her bag ditched. She kept her wand, of course, and set off for Hogmseade.

She missed when Hogsmeade was a place to be excited about, full of wonder and treats and Butterbeer. But if she lamented on that fact daily, she'd be trapped in the equivalent of a snow globe, shaken up with nostalgia and glee. She didn't want to live in a fragile, contained world anymore. Especially not as the least informed member of The Order; as Snape had put it, she was left with mysteries as it amused everyone else to watch her struggle.

The Shrieking Shack was much the same as it had been the last time she'd come here. The windows were shattered open, and the thinner segments of the walls were iced and jagged. Out of formality, she went through the front door. The soft crunch of ice and glass beneath her boot unsettled her, but she frowned through this apprehension. It was hard to picture the Order gathered here, primed for an attack by someone they thought dead. She looked at the spot where Ginny had moaned through a hangover, and where Sirius had lolled in Ayers' lap.

Where Selwyn-Snape had sat, frozen and cruel, while the real Snape was upstairs.

Hermione was less and less sure that the man she'd struck inside of Draco was Voldemort. That's what she was here to ascertain, if possible.

If there was an answer to be had.

She started in the kitchen, which was empty in every way. The furniture was splintered and broken across the floor, with great sections laid against a wall. The fixtures were all shattered, and the ice box was empty. Not even mould lingered in this place. But the air was alight with something, a tang of darkness she'd not noticed their first few trips here. She'd not been looking for it, she supposed, she'd not really thought to.

But it was in how her hairs stood up along her arms, or how her chest felt heavier with each step.

The drawing room and the downstairs lounge were the same as the kitchen. There were more seated areas, sure, but everything else was broken beyond use. She'd considered repairing things, to stave off the draft, but she didn't want to use magic when that tang sat heavy in the air. She scoured for wards or any inclination that the place was being watched, but nothing blinked back. Instead the spell rang like a low-toned bell, with only distant blips from the nearby houses. They had anti-apparation charms, anti-summoning charms, all the basics for any wizarding family.

Hermione felt a pit form in her throat as she looked at the stairs, which had been repaired during their last trip here. She approached, cautious, the low crunch of snow now louder as the roof above remained cracked open.

With heavy legs, she took to the stairs. It was a slow process, as she didn't want them to creak. She tried her best to keep her weight even and light, unsure if she was being too cautious.

But there was no such thing.

She waved her hand over her feet, to soften the sound of her shoes. It helped, at least enough to ease the squeak of the stairs. By the time she reached the top step, she felt more confident. There were no imprints in the snow, nor the dust. No one had been here, or if they had, it'd been a long time.

She ignored the side rooms, as they were boarded up as they had been her first time here. She used a minor detection of magic along the way, and the only response to the spell she got was from ahead of her, where the barrier had frosted over between the far bedroom and the hallway. It was almost six in the evening and daylight was skint. She didn't want to be at The Shrieking Shack until late, even if time was on her side. She was hungry and eager to get to her homework.

But she needed to see the room, the one she'd been cheated out of before her sights had turned to Draco's safe return.

It was strange to stand in the room. It took her a long moment, but she realized that the softened sound of her boots wasn't the source of the quiet. She couldn't hear anything, not the bustle outside as folks began to sprawl for dinner and drinks. She yelled to the rafters, an indifferent 'hello', and nothing resounded. The room had been warded against sound. So even if Snape had been in here, screaming, no one would have heard him.

"Do you take me for the type to scream?"

Hermione whipped around, a round of _expelliamus_ cast before she'd identified the source. She watched as Snape waved a hand as if he'd anticipated her spell.

"Do I want to ask?"

"Why are you here?"

Snape smiled, creamy like off-milk. "Closure."

Hermione swallowed hard, her eyes narrowed at him.

And she was inside his mind, whether he liked it or not. It had been an accident, spurred on by mistrust. By the ease with which she slipped through his defenses like a shadow, she was sure he'd invited her in. He'd held the door open, to their years of Hogwarts, to Order meetings, to their time in the hospital where he'd unraveled his false face, to any shared event that only _he_ could know -- and then she was escorted out, with a sharp _snap_ of the door. It wasn't like when she'd drowned in Draco's mind, who was her only other frame of reference. It was like a scrapbook, offered up with careful curation.

"Why?" Hermione asked, her voice rasped.

"Why, the closure, or..." His expression crimped around the edges as he swept in. "In a world where faces can be stolen, it is useful to skip the mistrust." He moved to stand by a wall, which seemed unremarkable to Hermione's eye.

Hermione didn't want to ask more questions. She didn't want to know how he'd worked out she was here, or why he was here, or what that hand-held tour through their history had meant. Instead, she gripped her wand tighter as she dug through a small white chest against a nearby wall, as if that had been her mission.

"You should tell people, if you're going off-campus."

Hermione dug deeper into the cabinet. It was piles of empty vials, likely for the retention of Snape's hair. She opened another door, which was full of gauze.

"Especially here of all places." He ran his long fingers along the laths until his finger dipped between the boards. Something clicked, which Hermione couldn't identify. He smiled, triumphant, and withdrew his hand.

"Strauss is being interviewed for Dark Arts involvement."

"Yes," Snape said, airly. "He was brought into the ranks as Death Eater... Against my advisement."

"So he is one," Hermione stood up, her arms crossed. "Did you turn him over?"

Snape's malice-laden smile widened, and she so very hated how he smiled. It wasn't a smile, not in the least. It was a perversion of hate, so thinly masked she felt like she was watching a terrible play. She had to wonder how he'd survived under Voldemort so long when his hatred remained so close to the surface.

"Part of your plea bargain with the Ministry, for your freedom..." Hermione nibbled on her thumbnail, as her gaze shifted over the wall he'd ran his fingers along. "Dumbledore stipulated that you were under his protection and his command, that's why you were at Hogwarts as a professor, originally. Did he include a clause where his death was excusable if it was by your hand."

It wasn't a question; Snape didn't answer.

"But you're still turning over Death Eaters, one by one, in the interest of preserving that good faith with the Ministry."

"As much as I appreciate your psychological profile of me," Snape raised his hand towards the door. "I'll have to ask you to leave, so I may disarm this place."

"Disarm?"

"I established this as a safe haven for Selwyn, after the war -- there's more concealed here than you realize." The statement was so sharp, she felt it hit her in the sternum. "I had meant to come here at some point to nullify the wards, but your rush here necessitated that I attend to it as a more pressing matter."

"Could you teach me?" Hermione said, softly.

Snape's brow jumped, though he reigned it back into place. "That is the nature of my profession as your _Professor_."

"Occlumency," Hermione corrected, her fingers interlocked. "I asked, but, I asked _Selwyn_ , and..."

He swallowed thickly, his eyes narrowed at her.

"I think Proudfoot read me today; I don't want to be a waiting target, for people to pull information from. For good or evil."

"Your first lesson," he said, his voice empty. "Remove any notion of good or evil."

...

_**Wednesday, 6th of January, 1999.** _

Hermione awoke to calla lilies and pink roses beside her bed, which made her smile wide. Until she read the card.

_Darling Hermione,_

_I request your presence at the Malfoy Manor this Friday evening, at your earliest convenience. I have arranged for Severus to escort yourself and Draco home, as we have more than adequate facilities to oversee your Potions lesson._

_Warmest regards, Narcissa Malfoy_

It wasn't... That wasn't a _request_.

Hermione dug out the contract from her bedside table, which no longer bore the silver signatures. Instead, the ink had turned a deep red, bright and burning. The contract seemed to have a heartbeat between her fingers, and she shoved it straight back into the drawer. She slumped back into her bed, her arms laid across her face as she mulled over her night. She'd arrived back late and used the basket to grab herself a packet of crisps. She felt hungrier than she had in a long while, as she'd not been eating much of anything.

She got up, her mind in motion. _Calla Lilies; martial bliss, purity, rebirth,_ the meanings sprawled into the mythos. She squared her jaw as she dressed, unsure if she was excited or miserable at the idea of a meeting with Mrs. Malfoy. She'd turned up in Draco's room, eager to arrange a binding contract for her loins to be promised to Draco.

Her body was ridden with ant-like crawling at the thought. She had to think of a way out of it. But she needed to see Snape, and she needed to pursue her Potions class. She had no angle to excuse herself. She was still fidgeting with her tie when she walked out, her gaze fixed downward. She stopped at the last second, as someone stood before her.

"Oh sorry."

Draco's brow flexed upward, his hands on his hips.

"Oh."

"The Shrieking Shack?"

A cool crack ran from her scalp downward, her cheeks red. She looked at his rings, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff; tracking and Occlumency. "I thought we'd missed something." She tilted her head back to meet his eye, though her expression softened.

"That's more of an..." He leaned closer, his brow raised. " _Order_ thing."

"Which I'm part of," she strained her neck as she looked up at him, perplexed. "Does everyone forget that?"

"You were in St. Mungo's a week ago, you aren't meant to be out and about, frolicking on dangerous territory."

Hermione rolled her eyes, for a lack of kind words. She refocused, her hands on her hips as a mirror to his petulance. "I'm sorry. Not about that -- about the stuck comment."

Draco looked as if she'd slapped him. Part of her wished she had, as that was easier to deal with. The emotional intimacy was still something she failed at, as much as he did. If he had a response, it didn't form. Instead, he slackened, a sly smile and a lazy posture now dripped over his frame. "You really think I was that upset about it?"

"Obviously you were."

"Sure," Draco dismissed, his tone cool. "I'm so weak that a little joke is going to tear me apart."

"Take the apology."

"It's cute that you think you can hurt me, Hermione." Draco waved his hands, a thick peel of laughter drawn from deep within him. "You're the one who always runs off to pout and whine."

"One chance," Hermione said, her tone solid. "I gave you a second. Don't beg for a third."

His nonchalance wavered, thin and light. He looked down at her, his gaze like knives. He glanced at her watch, the thick gold one that didn't suit him at all. "We'll be late."

"I'm not doing this back and forth. I refuse."

"You refuse?" Draco tipped his head, his teeth bared in a cruel line. "You're half-in, half-out, and I don't blame you."

Hermione remained between him and the girls' dormitory door. It was hawthorn, like his wand, prone to Dark Arts as it was to healing magic. She saw it in him, in how he'd hold her close and soothe her wounds... To reopen them when it suited him, to use her softness to hurt her. But she wasn't soft, not right now, not when she'd as good as died for him.

Not when he'd sat beside her bed, not as he argued for her life.

She was going to be left to fade.

They'd told her.

"You don't want me to sign the contract, do you."

Draco doubled down. His eyes remained cool and indifferent, withdrawn from her. There was a flicker, she told herself, there was something beneath all this. Something worse than the bile he was spitting, worse than the wedge he'd tried to crack down between them.

"You told me, in the past, to just _ask_ you if something's going on, so I'm asking. Why do you not want me to sign the contract?"

Draco's throat flexed. "This is a bit of fun to you, Hermione -- nothing else."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not." Draco straightened his posture, his eyes still fixed down at her. "You don't want everything that comes with me."

"I do!"

"You don't," he repeated, heavily. "The only future you have is one without a contract."

"It isn't permanent. If we broke up..."

"You want out before you're even _in_ the damn thing," he smiled, too wide, a hand ran over his face. "You don't _get_ this Hermione, this isn't -- this is Pure-blood marriage contracts and courtships, it's more than just... You don't get it. This isn't an agreement made lightly, or to be taken on without thought."

"But you could let me out."

"Would I?" He leaned down, his hands framed either side of her head. "I have you, body and soul until I decide otherwise. Not that it has to be sexual; no. But you can't _marry_ anyone else, you're off-limits to anyone outside of the terms. There's so much more to it than you seem to understand."

"Stop calling me stupid," Hermione hissed, angry and low. "I had Ayers look at it. I read it. I get it."

"If you got it," Draco said, his voice heavy. "Then you wouldn't want into it."

"How did Pansy get out then?"

"She had a contract of her own; a mutual dissolution clause." 

"Then add that for me." Hermione felt her cheeks burn hot beneath his gaze, as he lingered too close. She wanted to stop the conversation, to drag him into her room and kiss him until this was out of their minds, but they couldn't. "I could get Ayers to help, to add special considerations to allow me more freedom."

"Your blood had to be worked into the contract in the first place. To add stipulations that you could overrule me, it's not possible." He faltered, for the first time in their conversation.

"Don't," Hermione's voice waivered, as she jabbed a finger into his chest. "Don't make it about my blood. We bleed the same. I would know," her gaze drifted to his chest, where she'd watched his blood swell from inside his chest.

"Do you want me to own you that deeply, Hermione?" He asked, his gaze level with hers.

"You wouldn't own me."

"As I said," Draco smiled, aloof. "If you got it, you wouldn't want into it."

And then he kissed her, and she was so stunned she kissed him back.


	6. sidelong slice.

_**Friday -- 8th of January, 1999.** _

By Friday afternoon, Hermione had given up on the contract altogether. She had read it through several times with the help of Professor Ayers. It became clear that any additions would melt away like butter on a hot pan. The words sizzled and popped until they vanished. She didn't know what to do with the contract so she left it tucked in her drawers beside her bed, covered in scrunched parchment. But the shadows began to bleed onto her Arithmancy homework and her eyes became blurred.

Arithmancy class wasn't difficult to keep up in. It was her personal research that challenged her most. Classwork tended to be repetition and discussion, neither of which Hermione was invested in.

Especially not with how heavy the contract weighed in her mind.

If she couldn't agree to the courtship terms, she imagined tonight was to be her send-off.

That they'd have to break up, if she couldn't commit.

They were nineteen.

Was she meant to marry him by twenty, and provide an heir by twenty-one? Or was even that pace too slow?

Mrs. Malfoy liked Hermione well enough. More than Hermione had expected if she were honest. The woman stood proud and lithe with a permanent look of discontent. Her sharp features had been passed down to Draco, the boy that Hermione loved and would lose. If she couldn't commit to an eternity as his and his alone, then she couldn't have him.

It was unfair.

She had died for him, and he'd died for her. Not in any specific, permanent way, but she'd gone beyond the Veil. She'd do it again for him, but only if it were her choice. It was a continual cycle of thought, one that she couldn't afford to sink her time into. She loved Draco for his patience and his loyalty but she refused to subject herself to a contract wherein he could decide to leave her while keeping a grip around her heart.

" -- in the exams."

Hermione blinked, her hand tucked beneath her chin. She copied down the notes from the dusty chalkboard at the front of the room that showed the formulas they'd need to memorize for a practice exam next week. She hadn't looked at Draco throughout the lesson, though his hand had rested on her thigh since they'd sat down. His thumb and index finger brushed at the skin of her knee, where her robes had fallen aside. The corner of her lips quirked at him, unsurprised that he'd managed to find the sliver of skin in the sea of her modest uniform.

Other students began to pack up their supplies and she felt so locked in the mundane. It was strange to be at school without some pressing tragedy on her shoulders. The closer to the end of the year, the direr the stakes. That was how it had been year after year, so to find herself on the precipice of winter with no greater cause to champion... She felt her chest ache like she had forgotten something. Like there was something she was meant to do and she'd simply forgotten it.

"Why did your mother invite me to dinner tonight?"

"I'm not sure."

Hermione paused as she put away her parchment and quills. Her textbook remained, the rich blue cover littered with gold leaf. It was one of the prettier textbooks and had been a treat to herself. She ran her fingers along the ornate marks before she looked back at Draco, her expression open. "Did you tell her that I refused the contract?"

He didn't answer.

Hermione got up, which left a cool spot on her leg where his hand had been. She had more out-of-body experiences as of late, where she'd feel as though her hands weren't her own or like she was behind her eyes rather than seeing. It was strange and disorienting, but it would go away in time. The Healers still had no idea how Voldemort had orchestrated forced possession to such a degree. She hadn't been able to explain it clearly, as it hadn't been rational nor had it been something she'd read about.

She would look into the Malfoy library, to see if she could find whatever had inspired such a bizarre attack.

"I was thinking," Hermione said, her voice level. "When Voldemort exchanged Emily and I, where he bound me to Emily's body while he was within yours -- "

Draco looked grey around his edges, his face pale.

"I think he expected _me_ to be aligned with his wants, given the contract. If Emily had signed a contract bound to you, I think he wanted my fealty. I don't know why he wanted it so desperately, perhaps to -- to spite Harry, or..." She trailed off, her brow furrowed. "He really expected me to want to be with him in some capacity as if I'd forget it was him instead of you. Strange isn't it."

Draco swallowed in a demure, distant way.

"When he was..." Hermione trailed off, not confident in her question nor her voice. "Were you able to see what was happening?"

Draco's expression faltered, terror to nothing. He raised his chin, his gaze leveled at her as if he'd never seen her before. "I don't know."

"I was just curious," Hermione shot back, her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth.

"Yes, well," his mouth twitched to the side, an almost smile. "What happens to curious cats?"

Hermione didn't reach for his hand and he didn't offer. Instead, they walked in silence towards the Great Hall and ate in equal silence. She looked at him once or twice, her curiosity like a weighted blanket. Her shoulders slumped and her head dipped as she ate for necessity. She didn't taste anything given how quick she had eaten.

The Great Hall was in higher spirits than she expected. The room was packed tighter than it had been a few weeks before the holidays. She had to wonder if Ayers and Flickwit had been successful with their reversal of the enrollment charm. The Ministry had sent a third of their usual acceptance letters due to the limitation of Muggleborns or perceived traitors. The only names that were still on the registry were children who'd been manually enrolled by their parents in the midst of the war, which was minimal. Everyone had been so afraid and reluctant to part.

The school shouldn't be standing, Hermione thought with lax misery.

"Quidditch tomorrow? Blaise asked, his arms folded on the wide wooden table. Hermione would never make peace with the strangeness of sitting at the Slytherin table. It felt wrong of her, like dog-earring a first-edition library book.

"Family commitments, unfortunately."

"Merlin, do they ever let you live?" Blaise wedged his hand against his temple.

Draco's lips flexed around unspoken words. He had a coffee laid out in front of him, as well as a few notes from Arithmacy he was in the process of neatening up. He prodded the words with his wand, to straight the curls and to accent the edges. His notes were far prettier than Hermione's, a fact which she envied. Hers were neat, sure, but his were beautiful.

"I think it's irresponsible."

Draco, Blaise and Hermione all turned at once to see the same red-haired girl from the Quidditch pitch.

"Did I ask your opinion?" Draco said, his tone level.

"No, but given your grades are lacking, you'd be wise to stop flitting out of school for the littlest of things."

"Pardon -- "

"I meant, given that Granger is beating you still in every subject, it seems irresponsible to relax," she waved a hand wide as if she didn't know how to read a room. Even Hermione wasn't that socially inept. "I'd suspect she's dating you to sabotage your grades, given she's still beating you after being in the hospital for a few days."

"Mafalda, you really..." Blaise stared at her with a mix of admiration and terror.

"Why are you digging into my grades," Draco ground out, his teeth grit so tight he might shatter them.

"It's hardly digging around if I've asked for example essays, to be given your work as well as Granger's." She paused, to look Hermione directly in the eye. She gave the same impact as Molly Weasley, which unsettled Hermione in a way she couldn't explain. Her face was soft and familiar, rounded at the edges. Her eyes were exceptionally cruel. "By the way Granger, you wrote in a Potions essay last semester that dittany was inflammable when it is occasionally flammable. Really quite a dangerous mistake." She smiled a sweet smile, to which no one reciprocated.

"I didn't -- " Hermione's voice faltered, her mind whirling. "I said that the plant itself isn't flammable, but the vapor the dittany produces is."

"Well, no," Mafalda shook her head. "The plant itself can still _burn_ , given that the vapor can be held within the plant before it is released. Ergo, the plant should be treated as flammable at all times."

"That's semantics," Hermione's brow fell into a heavy line, her eyes narrowed at the girl.

"Safety is all about semantics," Mafalda sang back. "Something to be mindful of," she collected her satchel and waved a little cloying wave. She was gone in seconds and Hermione had never so deeply wanted to hurt someone in recent memory.

"Is that what it's like," Hermione said, her voice hollow. "To talk to me."

"Now that you mention it," Draco's tense expression broke as he laughed, his hand in hers. "There is an uncanniness."

She shoved him, to which Blaise snorted.

...

Although they had Potions in the evening, Snape had sent word that they should wait at their dorms. There was no need for their presence, given they'd be at the Malfoy manor that evening to complete their Potions work.

Instead, Hermione and Draco were left with an open period between lunch and dinner.

Hermione was seated on the love seat in their dorm, her legs laid across Draco's lap. While Hermione had a thick tome on the nature of marriage laws and contracts, Draco had a Muggle novel that he'd borrowed from her. He had asked her for one of her favorites, as a recommendation, and he'd been dedicated to reading it. On occasion, he'd point to a word and ask for clarification, but for the most part, he was well-versed in Muggle terms. She hadn't anticipated that, but the book was one of Jane Austen's. It wasn't as if the terminology was so modern.

Perhaps if it was about race cars or space travel, he'd have more questions.

There was a soft serenity in the quiet they shared. The greenhouse around them was damp and cool, though not as cold as outside. The Glimmertree glowed white and blue, still in the height of its winter form. She could smell the faintest hint of spearmint and fresh grass, two things that defined Draco to her. His fingers worked softly against the mass of her calf, somewhere between a caress and a massage.

In truth, it was tense. Her heart lept when his hand inched higher, just for a second, to brush at her knee or when his pinky would dip against the softer side of her inner thigh, Not so far up, just inside her knee, just between her socks and her skirt, but it was enough to make her chest tighten.

She had expected him to snatch her up into his arms, to steal her away into their dorms or to press her against the old parchments along the walls. Or to sit her on one of the old wooden desks, to stand between her knees and to kiss lines down her throat.

Instead, they waited for Snape in companionable silence.

By six o'clock, other Eighth years returned from the castle. Most ignored Draco and Hermione as they sat so openly on the couches by the front door. They either feared Draco or her, she wasn't sure. She did see how Pansy snorted and the strange look on Neville's face, but no one was concerned.

She withdrew her legs from his lap so as to slip on her modest Oxford shoes. She gave a weak, half-there smile to Draco as she stood. They hadn't spoken about the contract, or Emily. She had to wonder if she would get an answer or if he'd shut her out of everything. He hadn't moved to stand.

"I'm going to go get my things, for..." She trailed off as he remained indifferent, not even looking at her as she spoke. "Right," she said, her tone cool. She sounded so much like him it hit her between her ribs like a knife. They were fine, he was fine, she was alive, it was so stupid, it didn't matter. A panic fluttered between her lungs as she pivoted to go to her dorm, to collect her supplies. She'd packed a small bag in case they were expected to stay the night. She didn't much want to, if she was honest. She needed to buckle down and study. She couldn't afford to wile away her weekends at his mansion.

She had a future to worry about.

Draco stood with his hands in his pockets and a slim satchel over his shoulder. It was his home, after all. She doubted he needed much more than his wand. He extended his hand to her and she accepted it. He pressed a few light kisses to her knuckles as they walked towards the door. The silence remained as if he'd forgotten how to speak.

They stepped into the dim twilight, snow still thick on the grounds. A dark figure approached from the castle. As they came closer, Hermione could make out their long black hair and hunched posture.

Neither Snape nor Draco said anything as they met. Instead, Snape jerked his head towards Hogsmeade and the three of them walked in continued silence. Her fingers remained interlocked with Draco's, for at least he allowed her that. The low stone walls were nearly buried in snow and the trees stood like black shards. She opened her mouth once or twice to start a conversation but she was worried neither would respond. Or if they did, it'd make things tenser.

She felt like she'd done something wrong.

"I trust you can both Apparate," Snape said as they arrived outside the Malfoy home within Hogsmeade. It was easier to Apparate between linked properties, whether by wards or by blood. Given the distance, any assistance would be helpful. Hermione felt Draco's hand fall away from hers, so as to approach the front door. He held it open for Snape and herself before he snapped it shut behind them.

"Wiltshire is in the southwest of England, around five hundred miles away... A little more," Snape added, his voice a perfect match for the chill in the air. "We shall sidelong Apparate, for your sake." He looked at Hermione with a distinct air of derision.

"It's..." Hermione swallowed hard. "It's quite cold here."

"Yes, an abandoned home tends to be cold."

Hermione rubbed her arms, her head tucked closer to her body. Draco remained still beside her, though he looked her over with empty concern. She wished he'd reach out for her, to bring her close, but he didn't.

So she had done something.

Snape looked at Draco with an emphatic nod towards Hermione. He reached towards her, his hand cupped against hers. His eyes met hers and he gave a single nod. He didn't ask if she was ready. Rather, he Disapparated and reappeared in some stony glen with short stubby trees and too much sky. 

"Wait, Draco -- " she adjusted her bag, which sat heavy on her shoulder.

Another jump, and they were in a Muggle village. Or, what had once been a Muggle village. The place had been burned and what few houses she saw were fragile rubble. The repeated Apparation was necessary given it was over five hundred miles, but she'd not been ready, he hadn't waited, she wasn't _ready_. Their grip waivered, her intent muddled and then he was gone.

As were two of her fingers.

It didn't hit her at first, as she stared at the space where her ring and pinky finger had been split. Her hand shook as she retracted it against her chest, tears fell in thick lines down her cheeks. She bundled her hand up into her robes. She couldn't see her fingers, whether he'd taken them or they'd been shredded to pieces in the jump. She tried not to think about it, as she thought of the manor. She could make it there herself if she thought about it hard enough. She just had to go to Diagon Alley as a midway point, then to Wiltshire. She could remember the mansion, and she was allowed to Apparate there. Mrs. Malfoy had arranged it for her.

She crushed her hand between her robes and whispered a brief healing incantation. It cauterized the wound so that she'd not squeeze blood from where her fingers had disappeared to. She looked around the burned Muggle village once, unsure why this had been the midway point that Draco remembered best.

Then there was blackness.

Her feet hit cobblestone with a delicate thud. It was a bustling evening in Diagon Alley. A few people popped into existence beside her, as others vanished. It reminded her of a busy station, with people Apparating and Disapparating in quick succession. No one noticed her, or the blood that covered her hand.

Another jump, her final jump, and she feared she'd gone deaf.

She hadn't been focused. That was her problem. She'd been distracted and that was a dangerous thing when you Apparated. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked around. It was the Malfoy Mansion. She had arrived in the right spot, at least. But it wasn't her room, or Draco's. She hadn't thought of a destination, she hadn't been thinking.

She was in Lucius' study.

" _Immobulus."_


	7. steep stipulations.

_**Friday -- 8th of January, 1999.** _

"Oh. It's you." The voice was languid and rasped, not one that she could place immediately. Familiar, but not... Not quite.

Hermione's eyes swiveled for they were the only thing that could move. So she hadn't been stupefied, she thought with mild relief. Her jaw remained set in a stern line and her wide stance allowed her to remain standing at first. But the spread of her stance was countered by a firm shove between her shoulder blades. She tipped so that her thigh hit the desk.

"I had expected better from you -- to fall to such a simple charm. Disappointing."

Her thigh was pressed against the desk which began to numb from the weight of her body against it.

And then they paced to stand in front of her and she felt her eyes strain.

Lucius.

Except he had a wide scar from the corner of his jaw to his collarbone. A grim smile lingered on his lips. He looked more like himself in his regal dress robes and with his hair washed. The circles beneath his eyes and caved in cheeks had filled out since she'd seen him at Azkaban.

When had he gotten out?

Why hadn't Draco _told_ her?

"I knew we were expecting you," he flicked his wrist to check an ornate silver watch. It illuminated his face from beneath, white light brushed over a handsome face. She didn't think he was handsome per se, but there was something about him...

Something darkly familiar. A future, perhaps, a suggestion of Draco's maturity.

She wanted to scream at him but the charm kept her static.

"Couldn't be too sure," his voice rolled, soft and warm. The worst part of Lucius was all the ways he lined up to his son. They had the same nose and his brows would flex the same way as Draco's. It was unsettling, given how much more familiar she had become with Draco. "I hadn't realized you would be Apparating alone. Ah, but, where are my manners? How have you been?" He gave a wan smile. "You've been quite busy, haven't you."

A crack sounded from beside the study door. Tripley stood with her hands knotted together.

"Oh, Ms. Heriomey, oh no, oh no no no," Tripley let out a thick sob as she approached, to grasp her robes. "The Mister is so worried, so, so worried."

Lucius gave a half-hearted smile to the House Elf before he kicked her aside with the side of his foot. "Don't touch the guest, Tripley."

Tripley landed with a gentle thud. She didn't even make a sound of pain, or of surprise. Instead, she remained focused on Hermione, her wide eyes glittered with her misery.

"She arrived rather unexpectedly in my study, as you can see," he gave her a once-over. "I couldn't be sure it was her."

"It's her," Tripley said in a small voice. "I recognizes her pretty good, she has the big hair, the big eyes -- "

Lucius rolled his eyes at the elf, a hand on his hip. He shot Hermione a reluctant look as he raised his wand. The charm melted from her, head to toe, and she felt the pain resurface in her hand. She had arrived with it wadded up in her robes, disguised between her fists.

"What have you got there?" Lucius demanded.

Tripley vanished with a crack though she returned seconds later with Draco.

He looked at her once, though his eyes honed in on the missing fingers; her ring and pinky fingers.

Her rings, she realized in a dim way. 

Hermione didn't even get a chance to speak before Draco had his father against the bookshelves, an arm against his throat and his wand jabbed against his cheek.

"What did you _do._ "

"Son," Lucius laughed, though it was strained from the pressure against his throat. "I had nothing to do with -- " His gaze slanted sideways at Hermione, to the missing fingers. He smiled in a cruel way as if it were funny.

"She lost her fingers of her own accord?" Draco ground out the words, his arm laid heavier against his father's throat.

"Splinched," Hermione said with a dry throat. "I -- I think I was Splinched."

Draco snapped his head in her direction and she realized it'd been the first time he'd really _looked_ at her these past few days. He'd skimmed her, or looked at her feet. Or he look at her when he thought she'd not notice.

Hermione looked at the floor, her face hot.

"Last I heard you were to arrive with her in the foyer," Lucius's teeth dug into his bottom lip. He clicked his tongue against his teeth, pleased beyond reason. "My, my Draco."

Draco withdrew from his father, though he kept his wand out. He offered a hand out to her but hesitated, to instead grab her by the forearm. Her right one, where her Mudblood scar had been Splinched several times by goblin silver. It hurt, but not as badly as her missing fingers.

There was a hesitation, where she expected him to Apparate, but he stopped himself. Instead he linked their arms together and headed out of the study.

"It's fine, really, I just need to regrow the fingers," she said in a chipper voice.

"You don't have to cheer me up," he snapped. "You're the one who's hurt."

"But you're worrying," Hermione watched as portraits passed by them. A few mumbled the word 'mudblood', but she wasn't too bothered. They were old paintings of a pureblooded lineage. She would've been surprised if they liked her.

"What happened?" Draco turned a corner, his free hand reached for hers.

"When you Apparated, my bag started to fall off. I was distracted," she said, her voice low. "I wasn't ready to Apparate."

Draco's jaw strained.

She thought over the places they'd jumped to. The empty forest glen, with nothing of note in it. Then the Muggle village that had been burned down a while ago. A few months, or years, it was difficult to pinpoint. They turned another corner and jogged down the stairs.

"You didn't tell me your father was alive," Hermione said in the least petulant voice she could manage. "Or that he was out."

"I couldn't."

Hermione searched the white paneled walls as they came to a sudden stop. Draco waved a hand at the door to their right, which cracked open after he'd finished his gestures. Inside was a medical bay with decor that didn't match the Malfoy manor at all. There were potions and vials atop the workbench along with a bed that reminded her of St. Mungo's. Her stomach dropped and her hand shook at the sight of it.

"Where are we?"

"We won't be here for long," he said, his voice soft.

"Is this..." Her jaw tensed.

"It's linked to St. Mungo's," he said without hesitation. "Private room."

"Was this the room I was in?"

"No," Draco snapped the door shut behind them, to stand between her knees as he checked her face. "This room isn't meant for long-term cases. It's for -- " his voice wavered. "Injuries, of any sort. Easy ones to fix."

Hermione puzzled together the shape of his words. A private ward at St. Mungo's, accessible to his family at the drop of a hat. "Was this for the war?"

Draco frowned, soft and cautious before he gave a single nod of his head. He cupped her cheeks between his hands and she realized how red his eyes were. She didn't ask, didn't want to ask, and instead allowed him to look into her eyes. If he was in search of something specific, he didn't seem to find it. His shoulders relaxed, though the tension never left his jaw.

The door opened and a slim, severe-looking Healer walked in. He had cropped black hair and a thick mustache, his face so wrinkled he looked like a pug.

"Healer Parkinson," Draco nodded towards Hermione. "Splinched fingers."

"Splinched -- " Healer Parkinson rasped, his eyes wide. "Oh, Merlin, I thought it was something serious!" His posture relaxed, though he looked no less severe.

Draco stepped away, to gesture at Hermione's hand.

"Ah, Ms. Granger," Healer Parkinson said. "I always wondered how you were still alive."

Hermione ran cold.

Healer Parkinson smiled as if it'd been a compliment. "Always in the _Prophet_ , that is. And you were to be -- allowed to pass, why, just last week."

"Fingers," Draco repeated in a firm voice.

Healer Parkinson gave a watery smile as he checked over her missing fingers.

It hurt, even as she'd sat doing nothing. It hurt even more as he prodded and nudged the stubs where her fingers had been shorn off. The skin was swirled and meaty, which she treated with distant curiosity. It was easier if she pretended it was a lesson rather than something real, something that had happened to her.

He paced over to the cabinets and dug around until he found a vial with _Os Figere_ drawn on the side with an illustration of an ornate bone crossection.

"Not Skele-Gro?" Hermione asked in a weak voice.

"Do you wish to wait an entire day and suffer immensely," Healer Parkinson asked, with no question in his tone.

Hermione shook her head and paled as he doled out the potion. It was creamy white and resembled water more than anything else. Milk, perhaps. She shot a skeptical look at Draco, who had leaned against the opposite wall.

He hadn't stopped staring at her since the study.

"Skele-Gro is for larger work," he added with a gesture of the bottle. "While Os Figere is better suited for hands, feet, finer structures. It's also a hotter sensation rather than _pain_..." He offered the small vial of _Os Figere_.

Hermione sniffed it, to find that it smelled like a pond mixed with peppermint. Her expression wrinkled as she downed it. It sparked against her tone and tasted like something that wasn't meant to be swallowed. It was sharp, like cheese, but minty.

"That's disgusting," Hermione gagged.

"Well," Healer Parkinson lifted his chin, to examine Draco. "Endeavour to Apparate with more conviction in the future."

"Thank you," Draco said, his voice stern.

"I have other patients," Healer Parkinson waved a hand. A small vial of pain relief appeared, along with another vial she couldn't place. The color and shape of it was unfamiliar. "Drink these in ten minutes," he laid them on the table beside Hermione with no explanation. 

"You may go."

Healer Parkinson left before Hermione could formulate a thank you.

"Pansy's father?"

Draco's lips twitched.

Hermione looked at the vials he'd left beside her, the pain relief and the mystery one. She picked them both up with her right hand, only to realize she'd have no hope of opening them. The mystery one was in latin, something around the topic of scars. She dropped it back down, to examine Draco.

He approached to pick up each vial, which he held between his fingers.

"I'm sorry."

"I know," Hermione watched in abject disgust as her hand began to tingle. She couldn't speak or think, for all his speak about how it wouldn't be as painful, she still cried. She cried as bone spurs formed around the stumps of her fingers, and she cried as the muscles began to twine around the bone. The connective tissue and nerves ran laps around the fingers. She drank the pain relief potion, which didn't help in the least.

Draco remained with her, his hand on her thigh and his forehead pressed to hers. She leaned into the touch, her eyes scrunched shut.

By the half-hour mark, she had her fingers back. Her skin was translucent like an axolotl when she'd peaked down, but she couldn't watch the macabre progression for long. It hurt still, and her skin felt so tender. She didn't dare twitch them or move them, afraid of what she might do.

Draco whispered an apology with infrequent despair. He'd whispered it on repeat at first, though he'd since crouched in front of her, to rest his cheek against her knee.

...

Hermione sat beside Draco in the lavish sitting room faced with Mrs. Malfoy and Snape.

Lucius was by the window like a cat who was displeased to have a guest. He wouldn't interact with her, but he wanted his displeasure recognized. 

"Well," Mrs. Malfoy began, her voice level. "It's a pleasure to have you here, Hermione."

"Thank you Mrs. Malfoy -- "

"Narcissa," she cut over Hermione, her eyes sharp.

"Narcissa," Hermione said, anxious.

"I'm only sorry that you were greeted with such hostility," Lucius twitched. "After being Splinched." Draco twitched.

Snape smirked, which she didn't enjoy in the least. He never looked above 'mildly displeased', so for him to draw amusement from their suffering felt cruel. Then again, it wasn't so out of place for him to take sadistic joy where he could find it.

"It's really not that bad," Hermione looked down at her hand, which had regrown. A thin silver scar laced around her pinky and index finger. "It was an accident -- on both accounts." Her brow furrowed and she clenched her fist, which hurt too much for her to maintain. She relaxed her hand, her gaze leveled at Narcissa.

"Yes, well, someone strange Apparates onto my lap in my study," Lucius drawled.

"I didn't land in your lap!" Hermione's fist clenched against her better judgment.

"A figure of speech," Lucius faced the grounds outside, his hands behind his back. 

"In any case," Narcissa ran a hand across her delicate silver necklace which bore a dragon eating a snake. "You've missed your Potions class. For that, I'm very sorry."

"A tragedy," Snape examined his cuff, to adjust the buttons.

"But I do need your time, you see," Narcissa wriggled her fingers, to summon the contract.

Of course.

"I can't sign that," Hermione said, no hesitation in her voice.

"Lovely," Lucius said with a bright smile. "It's settled then."

"No," Narcissa dropped the contract onto the table with a loud thud. "It's a tradition for both families to offer their clauses and counterclauses. Hermione, dear, as you have no magical family to assist you, I imagine you've not felt inclined to agree."

Hermione looked to Draco, who hadn't spoken since they'd sat down.

"What's your apprehension, then?" Narcissa smiled, her expression softer as she took in Hermione's presence.

"The annulment." Hermione worried her robes between her right fingers, as her left hand remained lax.

"Well, there has to be a way to end the agreement," Narcissa smiled as if she didn't understand.

"I'm expected to remain until Draco decides to allow me out," Hermione's voice lost confidence. She cleared her throat to reclaim it, her chin lifted. "I find it rather alarming that we've been dating for two months and we're expected to commit for life."

Narcissa and Draco exchanged a tense look before she returned her attention to Hermione. "People are married before they've even dated at all," she swallowed hard, her smile sharper around the edges. "That's how it's done. To have you two dating and -- intimate, without even a baseline agreement, that's very unheard of. For someone of Draco's background, at least..."

"And if I want to leave him?" Hermione's voice wavered around the edges, as she tried to think of herself. Her future self, the one she couldn't forfeit to a permanent agreement.

"If you're planning to leave him before you truly have him, then I don't think we have much to discuss," Narcissa spoke with clean, clipped words. Her softness had faded with each point.

"Perhaps an inversion," Snape said, his lips twitched. "If the clause cannot be changed, then allow Ms. Granger to have the say as to whether an annulment can occur."

"What?" Hermione frowned. "No!"

Draco sat forward to rake his fingers across the agreement. The names shifted, her name moved to replace his. The changes rippled further from the heart of his. Hermione couldn't see how deeply the changes had happened, but she tried to grab his hand away.

Had Draco been able to do it this whole time?

Hermione kept a firm grip on his wrist and he met her eye.

"You have all the power here, Hermione," he said, his voice flat. "If you want it ended, it's ended. If your only objection was the annulment, it's done. You hold that over me."

"That isn't fair."

"It's this, or -- " he swallowed so hard his jaw bobbed.

"Or we consider him a liability to the family, along with you," Lucius smiled across his shoulder at them. "And nothing would bring me a deeper sadness than excommunicating my only heir; my son."

Narcissa rolled her eyes, wide and loose. She plucked the contract from the table to examine the finer details that Draco had shifted. She didn't emote her response if there was one. She looked more like the woman remembered than the woman she'd fought alongside at Azkaban.

"You can annul it if I become an issue for you." Draco waved a hand.

"You have until tomorrow morning, dear," Narcissa said, her voice gentle. "Otherwise we will have to ask you to cease all contact with him; he's got a future to think about and we've been accommodating to your affections thus far."

Narcissa and Lucius rose, to disappear from the room. They left the contract between Draco and Hermione, with Snape as an unpleasant fixture on the armchair opposite.

"You'll be having a make-up class on Sunday afternoon," Snape said, his fingers interlocked. He vanished before he received a response.

For once Hermione wished that he'd remained.


	8. get what you want.

"What did you change?"

"The annulment."

"Could you do that all along?" A pause. "Why not just help me, to make it suit the both of us?"

Draco had promised her answers if only she'd ask.

And yet he sat silent.

Hermione massaged her newly former hand, the skin too soft, too unlike her skin. She dug her nail into the pad of her ring finger and felt nothing.

Draco watched, quiet as he had been in the medical bay he'd dragged her to.

"Please explain to me why you never told me about the contract. And, about why you don't want me to sign it." Hermione looked at Draco, her cheeks flushed. "Tell me, honestly, and I won't sign it."

"I have told you."

"You haven't."

Draco stood to leave.

Hermione felt her hand twitch towards her wand, but she resisted.

Instead, she moved between him and the exit. Her back pressed against the sleek white door, her hand clamped over the silver fixture.

He concentrated down on her, his eyes narrowed. Then sideways, at the handle.

At her freshly healed hand.

The one he'd Splinched. She didn't need the ring to see the moment play back behind his eyes, the way he'd panicked at the sight of the Muggle village burnt to the ground.

Given his pallor, she turned her gaze, for a moment. Her barely healed skin had torn in her haste. Blood dripped around the handle of the door, red on silver.

The pain relief had numbed her to it even as she followed his gaze. She drew her hand protectively against her chest to obscure the damage.

But the exit remained hers.

"Just be honest."

He snorted.

She had her theories, but she didn't trust them. He pivoted every day, one second he was dripping from her, laid on her, in her ears and her throat like the frost in winter.

And then he became ice altogether.

He'd withdraw, as he had now, sharp eyes worn against the sneer he'd assumed.

She no longer feared his barks. They were far kinder than the bite of loneliness, when he'd run away and hide until he decided he could handle her again.

Always on his terms.

Always her, chasing him, giving chances.

"Please Draco," she kept her voice light but she felt as if she'd fallen like lead to the bottom of the Great Lake. "Why don't you want me to sign it?"

Draco reached out for her hand. She clutched it closer, her gaze defiant.

"A small section of the contract occludes you from _actively_ killing me. Perhaps you ignored it or failed to consider what that means," he said, his tone neutral. "Even if I had my hands wrapped around your throat or a knife in your stomach."

"You'd never -- "

"Hermione," Draco said, his voice cut through her retort. "Less than a month ago, you survived because you _could_ have killed me."

From the withdrawn look on his face, she could see how he'd wanted that to be the end of it. The end of them, the end of him, if it meant she was still around.

She turned away from him, enough to hide her hand over her shoulder. The blood ran in rivulets down her wrist.

"But I wasn't trying to kill you," Hermione's voice crackled as she spoke. "I was trying to take down Voldemort."

"Did you?" Draco scoffed. "Selwyn vanished, probably dead. Ayers and I should be dead. Emily _did_ die. And for what?"

Hermione flinched, her lashes fluttered at the change in tone. "That's not what we're talking about."

"Isn't it?" Draco let out a thick sound of aggravation. "Why are you so intent on this contract, Hermione? That's the more important question."

"Because I want to be with you."

"You are with me."

"Permanently," Hermione glared up at him.

"That's a lie," Draco snorted. "You have your whole life ahead of you, you don't want -- "

"Stop telling me what I want!" She shoved him with her good hand, which he caught with his own. He yanked her closer, though she fought against it. "I just want to be with you, to properly be with you, not half-in, half-out."

"It's been two months, and we've fought for most of that."

Hermione strained her throat, desperate to find words to capture what they had. But he was right. In some ways, at least. It was two months, and she wanted to give her whole life to him. After eight years of fighting and cruelty and blood politics, she was begging him to let her into his world.

And she didn't know how to stop herself. 

"Why don't you be honest, Hermione. Are you so insecure as to need to impress my parents? To join the ranks of blood purity, to finally fit in with people who hate you for existing in the first place?" He shifted his weight to one leg, his head dipped closer to her. "I thought you were better than that."

Hermione's gaze flitted between his eyes, silver in the ornate lanterns that had faded to life around them.

"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, Granger," Draco looked her over once, his posture as straight as she'd ever seen it. "The contract is a waste of both of our time."

"Why do you do this to people?"

Draco's gaze didn't falter, not as he maintained eye contact with her.

"Why do you groom people into having affection for you, then tear them apart when they get close?"

His throat bobbed, but little else changed.

"I meant it when I said I love you. You know that I meant it," Hermione felt the drip of blood down to her elbow, into her robes. "And I believed you when you said you loved me, too. I died for you."

She didn't know if it was true, but it felt true. She'd die for anyone she cared about. Perhaps her life didn't mean as much to him, or he didn't believe her.

"You don't get to weigh my sacrifices for me," Hermione's voice was as cool as his; she'd learned. "I'd still die for you, if that's what it took to get it through your pompous head."

He faltered for a brief second, and that was all she needed.

Until he shoved her wrist out of his grip, as if she'd burned him.

His features straightened, as if ice melted behind the mask of indifference. Level, cool. He reformed, his brow sharp over his eyes as he looked down at her.

She had watched the light leave his eyes and the spread of his lips as he'd come apart. She'd seen him in so many facets and phases that the two months they'd been together felt like two life times.

And she still couldn't unravel the look he wore now, his head bent down towards her in the dark.

"Stop acting like you don't care," Hermione said, her voice crisp. "You do care, about me, about your mother, about your friends."

Draco's lips parted, but he didn't say anything.

"So why won't you let them care about you?" Hermione stepped away from the door, though he took a step back to compensate. "Why do you keep everyone at arm's length?"

He had a pattern. She had recognized it before they had dated, but she was too angry and too determined to let it slide. She told him how had one chance, then another, and another. The chances piled up and soon they'd be regrets. She refused to back down, and beyond that, refused to accept his malice for what it was.

Because it hurt.

It was meant to hurt.

That's what he wanted, and she didn't understand why.

He'd wrapped her around his fingers and he knew what her pressure points were. Pride in her place as a Muggleborn but always a little out of place. She was driven to succeed and groomed to impress.

She cared about his parents opinions, Narcissa more than Lucius. She was handed an easy answer, one she could accept as romantic. That he wanted to keep her genuine and herself.

But there was more to it, more to his apprehension.

And then she saw fear.

"You aren't poison, you know."

"No, but as you said," Draco's voice tightened, though she wasn't sure why. "I am a burden."

Hermione's brows dropped. She had said that to him... Several days ago, perhaps? When she'd made light of how often they're simplify their relationship to mere 'fun'. 

He vanished in a soundless compression, black and silver mixed until he was gone. It took no more than a second, and she'd not had a chance to do anything about it.

She looked left and right, to see that she was alone. He'd Apparated.

Just...

Gone.

Hermione let out a gentle scream into the meat of her palm, to stop it from echoing through the entire house. He took her words, twisted and sharpened them until they were weapons he'd drive into himself.

And when the self-flagellation wouldn't work, nor the verbal abuse, he'd leave.

He acted as if his absence was the best gift he could provide to her.

Hermione looked at her bare hands, no rings. She had no means to locate him or to yell at him.

Her gaze shifted, slowly then all at once.

The contract.

Draco had inverted a singular clause to her knowledge. She could terminate the arrangement at her discretion and only then. It didn't undo the lingering commitment nor the idea that they were expected to marry.

The contract was being totted around as an all or nothing thing by his mother.

As if she had to be with him forever, or never again.

(She had made her choice.)

She walked over to the table where it laid, the shimmer of silver and the swirls of their names. She wiped her face, wet from tears, and slapped her bloody palm down on the signature line.

It wasn't painful, as she expected.

It was warm. 

As she drew her hand back, the blood seeped into the parchment. Her name returned, much as she would have signed it herself. It looked like the paper had been cut with a scalpel, red lines beneath sliced parchment. His name appeared alongside hers, the name red beneath the edges of the sliced parchment. As if it were muscles beneath the hide, tanned and cured into a writing surface.

It looked like a wounded beast, and she couldn't help it.

Instead, she sat on the floor between the rich white lounge furniture, her blood dried and the cut stopped by a whispered healing spell. She was too invested in the fine writing to bother to clean her hand, it wasn't as pressing as the life she'd signed on for. But the contract was cut and dry; any children they had were occluded from an inheritance, she could not speak of their family affairs to outside parties, she could not ask for money and she would not be compensated for her time in any capacity.

That she could do no harm to him, not even to protect herself.

(She ignored that for now; if she needed to, she could renounce the contract and... She didn't want to be half-in, half-out, not anymore.)

Hermione sat on the floor of the study until it was black outside. She read and re-read the contract.

The contract had wedged secrecy between them. She hadn't gotten anything real and true from him for almost a week now. Not since Narcissa had turned up in Hogsmeade. He had been on the verge of something, of honesty and intimacy. He'd asked her to outline her childhood, the warmth and the depth of it, the truth of family.

And then defined his family as a rotten stump, framed with ivory and silver.

He hadn't told her that his father had survived. He hadn't spoken about Selwyn, or Emily. He shut down at the mention of Strauss, avoided her for it.

A rotten stump in a gilded frame, she added as she looked at the beautiful silver leaf along the molding.

She had signed the contract; he had no excuses now.

...

Hermione had been left to her own devices, which was strange. She had never been left alone in such a big place before. Not even Tripley appeared to tend to her, nor any of the other elves. She didn't see Draco or Narcissa, which was strangest of all. She had expected them to be notified by the contract, or for something to happen.

But she was left to wander the halls, unsure if she was meant to be here.

Out of place.

Her stomach bottomed out as she went around the same hallway for the third time. She was sure the portraits were changing positions to confuse her, backward and forwards. She had tried to mark the walls with sigils of glitter, but the house refused to let such marks remain.

It was with sheer luck and determination she found her way to the library.

He'd laugh about her bloodhound instincts for books.

(If he was here.)

The evening air felt hollow like she had missed something. The New Year had to have been a party, hadn't it?

He had told her it was up to her if this was fun or forever.

She'd stupidly believed him.

He took the choice away from her like a petulant child. Every time she tried to inch closer to him, to lean into the good, he would act like she'd slapped him or torn into his chest with her bare hands. So instead, she selected thick tomes about trials that had gone in the favor of the defendant. She wanted to help Ayers and Sirius with their appeals if only to put Harry's mind at ease.

It was a task, something to focus on, something that made sense.

The night grew dimmer, softer, then blurred altogether.

It was three o'clock in the morning when she woke up. It said as much on a giant clock, framed over Draco's shoulder.

He was shaking.

She didn't react at first, given the sleep in her eyes and the weight of the darkness.

But then he didn't give her a chance.

Instead, he had his face in her lap and his arms around her calves. She couldn't jump, though she wanted to. She was about to protest, that this wasn't the sort of place for that, but the heat in her chest and cheeks disappeared.

He was crying.

The Library was too dark for her to pick out his features, but she could feel the shape of him. His shoulders were hunched, shaking, his face obscured in her robes. His head was angled away from her, and he'd deny it. It wasn't a deep sob. It was shaky and slow and had she not been around him before while he cried, she may have just assumed he was cold.

She didn't mention it; left it for him to bring up.

But then, she didn't know what to say.

"I signed the contract," Hermione said, her fingers threaded through his hair. Her hand had healed since then, the blood and tissue all settled. _Os Figere_ was quite strong, it seemed. She didn't dare ask how expensive it is.

"I killed Strauss."

Hermione's hand stilled.

They sat like this for a long while.

"He asked for my father's help, to escape from house arrest," Draco's voice wavered. "Wanted to go to France."

Hermione resumed stroking his hair, her brow furrowed. She felt as though there were something here she had missed. Perhaps she hadn't heard him correctly. She was too nervous to move, too afraid to.

"But Strauss was the one who told the Ministry about my father -- the book." His cheek plumped against her knee. "That book, the one that you found in that drawer during Hallow's Eve. He... That was him. He put it there."

Lucius' arrest, based on the dark artifact. They had arrested him based on the assumption he had attacked Hermione, that he was working with the Dark Lord... But it had been through Selwyn. And by extension, Strauss was meant to check the house for dark artifacts. The place had been lived in by Voldemort for months, he hadn't been thorough enough, he hadn't --

Hermione's gaze flickered, as she recalled the reports, the ones that suggested that Strauss was responsible for finding Selwyn at the Shrieking Shack, alongside the assistance of Draco.

"So Strauss reached out to your father, not knowing he had suspicions about his motives... That he was responsible for his time in Azkaban?" Hermione pressed on, her fingers at the base of Draco's skull.

He didn't speak now.

She used that precious time to pretend that he'd not said what she thought he had said. That he hadn't admitted to cold-blooded murder as a means of revenge.

He sat up for the first time since he'd buried his face into her robes. His face was flushed in the dark, glossy eyes blown over with thick tears.

"I didn't mean to do it," Draco said, his voice distant and quiet. "I saw him... And I was so... So cold."

Hermione parted her lips, to hold his hands. She'd touched his face, flushed with the warmth of his misery. But his hands were shaking and frozen, as if they'd been dunked in ice. She slipped out of the chair, to hold him close. She thrived in the uncertainty, that there might be more to the picture, more than he was letting on.

And then she dropped her hands, to touch his rings.

They were gone.

"Draco," she said, her voice thin. "Where're your rings?"

His lips twitched, unsure. "I took them off -- not much point of them, to wear them if you don't have yours."

She held his cheeks between her hands, a severity in her gaze. She didn't see emptiness in his eyes, he saw her, but he seemed... Off.

"You say that you killed him" Hermione thumbed his cheeks, her voice shaky despite how cool she was trying to be. "Were you wearing the rings? When you killed him?"

"I took them off... Fewer identifiers," Draco chased her train of thought.

"Are you still having dreams, Draco?"

The dreams.

The thing she was meant to investigate during her first weeks at school. The dreams where he'd beg someone to save _someone_ , his mother she believed. That Voldemort was doing to him what he had done to Harry.

"No," he said, his voice thin. "Not as much as I used to, at least."

"So, you promised to take him to France, how... What happened?"

Draco swallowed hard, his breathing even now. "I went to Hogsmeade, my father had him at our home there. We took him to the Shrieking Shack -- "

"Tuesday night?"

Draco's gaze darkened. He'd yelled at her for being there that same Tuesday if she lined up the times.

"Snape met you there."

"Snape wanted to see what Strauss knew of Selwyn," Draco said in an even voice. "He was a corrupt Ministry informant and a Death Eater. He's the cyst that oozed pus into everything else -- "

"You shouldn't... It isn't your place to persecute people," Hermione said, a deep strain in her voice.

"He almost killed you that night. It's his fault it happened. And now he's dead." A sneer formed on his lips, as he reached out to touch her chin. His hands were cold. 

Where had he gone?

He kissed her, and she allowed it because she didn't know what else to do. The words didn't land as they should. He had killed someone. It was strange to hear, to have it brush her ears and rest in her mind. He treated it as an errand, one he had hidden from her. He cried in her lap, and now he wore it like a point of honor.

Because it had been for her.

If Strauss had assisted Voldemort with the book placement, then he deserved to be locked up forever.

But...

Not killed.

"Why didn't you allow him to go to trial," Hermione said, her words clipped.

"Corrupt Ministry official," he repeated, his tone heavy. "My father's still under watch by the Ministry given he's a repeat offender. Snape -- refused."

"So you just..."

"I take pride in protecting my family, and those I care about," Draco adjusted his posture, to meet her eye. "You demanded honesty -- are you going to be stupid enough to mourn a Death Eater, Hermione?"

"Draco," Hermione bit back the comment that he was a Death Eater, but she'd not had to say it out loud. Her gaze had darted to his arm.

The last quarter moon hung high in the air. Moonlike was all she had to watch him break in front of her, desperate to be his father even now. More than his father. More exacting, more lethal...

His lips twitched.

Hermione dropped her gaze to her lap, but he caught her chin. Drew her face back up, in spite of the dark, in spite of the revelation. 

"I told you," Draco said, his voice hollow. "If you got it, you wouldn't want it."

"Got it?" She said, her voice hollow.

"The contract," Draco strained his head to look at the high arch window of the Library. "Honesty." 


End file.
